


Converting All Your Sounds Of Woe

by prettyfaroutman



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 23,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyfaroutman/pseuds/prettyfaroutman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the vigil for Hero, Pedro tries to make amends, Balthazar navigates his feelings, and Ursula sees and knows all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. men have always been deceivers

When Hero emerged from the trees and Claudio went to hug her, Pedro cringed. How could Claudio have the fucking audacity to do such a thing after being so horrible, after acting so badly that for a while there he really believed he might have killed her? Pedro didn’t know how he could rectify his own part in the debacle, didn’t even know if it was possible, but he sure as hell knew it didn’t involve forcing himself back into anyone’s life. If anything, he wanted to shrivel up and disappear. He recalled with a cold irony Ben’s would-you-rather: give up tea for invisibility? Pedro was ready to make that compromise.  
  
Unfortunately, that didn’t make the isolation as the group dispersed any easier on him. He was the golden boy, “Prince of Messina and all-round great guy,” accustomed to being the center of attention, craving that attention in some part of him that he never wanted to admit. So this was his worst nightmare in terms of awkward endings. Everyone else was wandering or loitering in pairs or trios, conspicuously ignoring him. Claudio, Pedro's only guaranteed friendly ear, had left with Hero, ensconced in a tearful private conversation. Ben and Bea had wandered off somewhere together, which irked him to no end. But even worse, he watched Balthazar leave with Meg without even a glance in Pedro’s direction.  
  
 _Men have always been deceivers._ Did Balthazar really believe that? Pedro couldn’t help but feel that that sentiment had been directed toward him as much as it had been meant for Hero. He hadn’t had a real conversation with Balthazar in weeks. It wasn’t that Balthazar was angry, exactly, or at least he wasn’t openly angry. But whenever Pedro had approached him at school or given him a call just to chat, Balthazar had quietly but unmistakably shut down the beginnings of anything like what their friendship had been before. As if it weren’t bad enough that Bea and Ben were being total jerks about the whole thing.  
  
But then Bea had told them that Hero was really ill, and he realized that he was the one who was being a total jerk. Of course, by then it seemed too late to rectify anything with Balthazar. Pedro felt too ashamed to reach out to anyone initially, and though he’d made an effort at an apology during the vigil, he knew that nothing he could possibly say could right the wrong of what his behavior had been.  
  
And yet…even though he knew he was completely in the wrong, he didn’t expect Balthazar not to forgive him. He’d never seen Balthazar hold a grudge against anyone - not their year 9 lit teacher who would constantly press him to speak out more in class, not the kids who called him names in primary school, not even the gang of older boys who beat him up a few times in year 7. Was what Pedro had done really that much worse than all of that?  
  
But maybe he was imagining things. Maybe it was just this relentless inability to think about anything besides Balthazar that was making him paranoid about the whole thing. The ever present image of Balthy’s face in Pedro’s mind was certainly disrupting other parts of his life as well, so why shouldn’t that be affecting his perception here?  
  
As Pedro wandered aimlessly around the park while the others left, he felt the need to latch on to whatever reassurance he could find, so he stopped Ursula as she was packing up her camera equipment after most everyone else had left.  
  
“Ursula? Can I talk to you?” Pedro kept his hands in his pockets, assuming the most penitent stance he could muster.  
  
Ursula glanced over her shoulder at him, then turned back to her camera bag, her hair swinging in front of her face. “I’m listening.”  
  
“It’s just, I mean…well, first things first, I’m sorry. I really fucked up, and I…”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
Pedro sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I just wanted to ask if…well…I mean, I know everyone’s mad at me right now. With good reason, obviously. But, like, do you know if Balthazar is angry at me for something? Something else, I mean,” he added quickly.  
  
Ursula sat back on her heels and looked up at Pedro again, considering him for a moment. “Why do you ask?”  
  
“Um, I mean, no reason I guess…”  
  
“Really?”  
  
Her eyes pierced him, so he sighed and plopped on the grass next to her, covering his face with his hair.  
  
“No, not really. But I can’t explain it. I just need him…to not be mad at me. That’s all.”  
  
“That’s all?” From her inflection, he couldn’t tell whether it was a question or not.  
  
It had been a while since he’d really had a heart to heart with Ursula - well before any of this nastiness had happened - so he had forgotten the way she had of prying you open like a fucking crowbar with three words.  
  
“I don’t know! I can’t explain it. I just…I can’t stop thinking about him and…it’s like…if Bea never forgives me, or even if Hero never forgives me, it’ll suck, and I’ll feel even more horrible than I already do, but if Balth never forgives me, I just…I honestly don’t think I could handle it. I really don’t.”  
  
Ursula stared at him throughout this whole speech. He could tell that the gears in her mind were turning, but he didn’t know what she was planning.  
  
“Are you sure you can’t explain it?”  
  
The look she gave him now was the driest look he’d ever seen. He curled in on himself under her gaze, drawing his knees all the way up to his forehead, hands over his face. Of course he could explain it. He wasn’t ready to, but of course he could.  
  
“Do you really need me to spell it out?” he forced himself to say.  
  
“Nope,” she said brusquely, breaking the tension of conversation completely. He peeked up at her and saw her sling her camera bag over her shoulder. “Balth was gonna come over tonight while I work on editing the footage from today. Why don’t you come over too. Eight o’clock. We’ll both be working, so bring a book or something.”  
  
She swung up from the grass and marched off, and Pedro was left to himself in the center of the abandoned park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/6: I retconned a single line from this chapter to fit with what comes later, so if you happen to notice it, that's why. If you don't notice it, so much the better! :)


	2. appropriate

Balthazar rang the doorbell a little after six, and Ursula answered it almost immediately.

“Hey, come on in. Mum’s got dinner on the table, but I wanted to tell you something really quick first. Let’s go drop your guitar in my room.”

Balthazar followed her down the hall. He wondered vaguely what Ursula wanted to tell him, but it wasn’t unlike her to make a small thing seem important, so he wasn’t too worried. She shut the door behind him as he lay his guitar case on the floor against her bed.

“So what did you think of the vigil today?” she began innocently.

“I thought it was great. I liked that Hero came out like that - I thought she was just going to listen to everyone from the trees.”

“Oh, I was pretty sure she’d come out…I was just surprised she let Claudio hug her like that.”

Balthazar shrugged. “She’s Hero. I wasn’t really surprised.”

Ursula nodded. “So, ‘men have always been deceivers,’ huh?”

“Heh, that.” Balthazar felt his face getting warm. “I’ve just been working on setting this poem I found to music, and one of the lines is something like that. Thought it’d be appropriate.”

“Appropriate to what?”

Balthazar squirmed a little under Ursula’s gaze. “To Hero, obviously. Hey, what were you going to tell me, anyway? I’m hungry.”

“Oh, just that a certain someone maybe heard something else in that. I thought you should know.”

“Wait, what? You talked to him?”

“He talked to me, actually. After you left. He asked if you were mad at him.” Ursula couldn’t help but laugh a little coldly at that.

Balthazar’s stomach flopped. “And what did you tell him?”

Ursula glanced up at the ceiling, apparently choosing her words carefully. “I asked him why he wanted to know, and when I finally got a satisfactory answer out of him, I told him he should come over tonight and find out himself.”

Balthazar froze. On the one hand, Ursula would never do anything to hurt him, so she must know something more than what she was saying. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to see Pedro in an intimate setting just yet. He still couldn’t really figure out if he was angry or hurt or just as fucking pathetically in love as ever. He hated not knowing how he felt, especially when the unnameable feelings were so intense.

“So…will he be here any minute?” Balthazar asked, voice shaking slightly.

“I told him to come at eight, so we could have dinner in peace and you’d have time to mentally prepare yourself.”

He sighed, slightly relieved. “You sure this is a good idea?”

Ursula cocked her head. “Not entirely, but I’m optimistic.”


	3. live unbruised

Pedro stepped into Ursula's room tentatively, a battered copy of _The Hunger Games_ clutched in his hand. Balthazar glanced up at him and briefly met his eyes, but quickly looked back down at the guitar in his lap.

“Hey," Pedro said quietly. Ursula came in behind him, shutting the door and heading right back to her desk chair. Pedro’s feet and jeans entered Balthazar’s peripheral vision. “Can I sit with you?"

“Mmhmm, sure," he nodded without looking up. He heard Pedro sigh and settle on the other end of the bed, the pages of the book crinkling softly.

For the last hour, Balthazar had been trying to figure out the finger picking pattern for the new song he'd been writing. Now, though, suddenly having Pedro mere inches away made it difficult to focus on anything intricate. When his fingers drew a blank, he strummed a harmonic, just for something to do that didn't involve much effort. 

“Hey, that sounds really nice," Pedro said, looking up from his book. “What song are you working on, by the way? Does it have words?" 

“Um, yeah actually. It's this Elizabethan poem that I found recently…Mumford and Sons took some of the lines from it for ‘Sigh No More,’ but I felt like the complete original really sounded like it should be a song, so..." Balthazar was still unsure how to act around Pedro, which made looking him in the eye practically impossible. 

“Can I read the lyrics?"

“Um…yeah, sure. Lemme just..." Balthazar set the guitar aside to pull his phone out of his pocket. He was planning to hand over the phone once he'd dug up the lyrics, but before he had a chance Pedro scooted right up next to him to peer over his shoulder. The sudden warmth of Pedro's proximity sent a shiver through him, but he pushed through the awkwardness as stoically as he could, handing over the phone and leaning away as quickly as possible to keep from being overwhelmed by Pedro's sheer physicality.

“‘Men were deceivers ever…’ Ah ha, that sounds familiar," Pedro said, a hint of dejection in his voice.

“Yeah, well, it seemed appropriate. ‘Converting all your sounds of woe' and all that." 

“So are you going to sing this for Hero then, when it's done?" he asked, handing the phone back.

Balthazar shrugged, picking up his guitar, his security blanket, once more. “Maybe.” 

“Can I…can I hear what you have so far?" 

It was an essentially innocuous request; Pedro giving him feedback on new songs was one of the things they’d always done together, so it felt like falling back into a normal pattern. At the same time, though, there was an earnestness in Pedro’s voice that was unfamiliar. Balthazar finally looked up, and he saw a warmth in Pedro’s eyes he’d rarely seen before. His stomach dropped, and he knew immediately that whatever betrayal he may have felt before was overshadowed completely by his stubborn heart.

“Yeah, yeah sure. I just have a sketch of it so far, so if you have any ideas—”

“Absolutely, mate.” Pedro’s enthusiasm startled Balthazar slightly. His pulse quickened as he began to strum the chords.

He wasn’t sure how long he and Pedro worked on the song together, but he had practically forgotten Ursula was in the room until Pedro leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, can I interrupt you for a sec?”

She pulled off her large headphones, nestling them against her neck. “What’s up?”

“I really think you should film this song that Balth has been working on. It’s just so good, and…I feel like Hero should see it.” Balthazar felt uncharacteristically embarrassed all of the sudden that Pedro was so single-minded about how important this not-even-finished song was.

“Is that the ‘hey nonny nonny’ one?” She was addressing Pedro, but her eyes flicked to Balthazar, telegraphing what he could only interpret as THIS IS IMPORTANT.

“Yeah. I just think it might help. I mean, if anyone can help her feel better, it’s Balthazar, right?”

“That’s true…”

“What do you say, mate?”

The suddenness of it all was overwhelming. Balthazar shook his head, not even as an answer but just in trying to process too much at once.

Pedro deflated. “Oh. Okay. That was a silly idea anyway. I’ll just—” he began, digging around the bed for his book.

“Wait,” Balthazar interrupted. “You don’t have to go. It’s fine. I just…need more time. To think about it. Okay?” Almost as a reflex, he put a hand on Pedro’s knee to keep him from getting up. He wasn’t sure what the deal was with Pedro’s intense zeal or sudden mood swing, but he did know that he missed this rapport with him and wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

Pedro tensed at the pressure on his knee, but sat back. “Okay. Yeah, sorry. I just got carried away. I’m sorry. Whatever you need. Of course.” He picked his book back up and opened to an apparently random page.

The next hour or so passed quietly, but comfortably. Eventually, Pedro nudged Balthazar, careful to keep from interrupting Ursula, to say that he had to leave. "With John gone right now, my parents are just super paranoid about not knowing where I am. Can't blame them, really." He sighed heavily.

"Right, yeah," Balthazar replied. "Still no word?" He had seen Pedro's video message to John, and John’s confession video, but since he and Pedro hadn't been speaking he didn't know anything beyond that. He felt a twinge of sadness; he had always been at Pedro's side in the most difficult situations in the past, and now he barely knew what was going on.

“Nothing beyond that video he posted on Ben’s channel. Did you see that, by the way?” Pedro pulled a hand through his hair in exasperation; Balthazar merely nodded. “I just can’t believe…I mean, he hates me, Balth. He _hates_ me. How did I not see that? Did you…? No, you know what? I don’t even want to know.”

Balthazar’s heart ached for Pedro, but he couldn’t think of anything helpful to do besides listen, so he waited.

“And he was right, too,” Pedro continued. “I fell for the whole thing so easily. Like I almost wish he and Claudio weren’t involved, so I couldn’t be tempted to toss off the blame. God, I was such an ass.” He hid his face in his hands for a moment before hoisting himself off the bed. Avoiding Balthazar’s eyes, he finished, “anyway, I’ll see you later.”

Ursula glanced over her shoulder briefly before returning her full attention to the computer, but Balthazar wasn’t ready to let Pedro leave quite so unceremoniously. “Wait,” he said, setting aside his guitar and hopping off the bed as well. “Thanks for coming, and for helping me with the song.” He reached out and gave Pedro a hug.

Pedro seemed startled at first, but quickly reciprocated. Balthazar had always thought Pedro gave great hugs - warm, tight, genuine - but this time Pedro hugged him as though it might be the last hug he ever received (or, perhaps more likely, the first hug he’d had in a series of troubled weeks). They reached the moment at which a normal hug would have ended, but neither was ready to let go. Balthazar felt Pedro let out a huge, shuddering sigh, and held him just a little tighter.

Finally, Pedro pulled away. He was still avoiding Balthazar’s eye, but he sounded a bit more composed as he said good night and left.

The moment Balthazar heard the front door close down the hall, Ursula removed her headphones and swiveled to face him where he was still standing.

“So…?”

“What?”

“You know what.”

Balthazar sighed, climbing back onto the bed. “I mean, he seems sad. It’s hard to watch, actually.”

“So you’re not still mad at him, then?”

He considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “Not enough that I want him to suffer for it.”

Ursula nodded. “Y’know,” she said, a lighter tone in her voice, “For what it’s worth, I think you should record that song, too, when you’re done with it. I think Hero would love it.”

“Yeah, I want to too, for her.”

“And I think Pedro would feel better if he thought he was a part of that. Not that he’ll be totally off the hook or anything, but…”

“You think so?”

“I mean, why else would he have been so adamant about it? But it’s up to you whether you want him there or not.”

“No, you’re right. If it’ll help him feel a little better…I just have to finish the song first.” He picked up the guitar and tried to remember where he’d left his train of thought.

Ursula nodded again, replaced her headphones, and swiveled back to the computer, but not before Balthazar noticed a tiny smile sneak onto her face.


	4. the last grain of doubt

The next morning as Pedro was eating breakfast, a text came through on his phone: _working on my song again this afternoon. want to come help?_ He smiled a little, and texted back almost immediately: _sure_

He wasn’t sure what he had done to garner such immediate forgiveness from Balthazar - more likely it wasn’t something he had done, but rather how wonderful and angelic Balthazar was - but it felt like such a relief to have someone in his life who didn’t hate him. Of course, the fact that it happened to be the person who Pedro couldn’t stop dreaming about also made it slightly thrilling. He fidgeted for the next few hours, unable to focus on anything. Finally, he put on his favorite hoodie and spent an extra twenty minutes making sure his hair was flawless before heading over to Balthazar’s house.

Balthazar answered the door in bare feet and rumpled clothes with his guitar slung behind his shoulder. Pedro had opened his mouth to say hello, but something about the casual sexiness of the image in the doorway arrested him before he could speak. He hadn’t really been uncertain of his feelings, but there had still been a smidge of denial, of “maybe if I ignore this it will just go away and things can go back to normal.” In that moment, however, that last grain of doubt was swept away as Pedro was overwhelmingly confronted by the depth of his infatuation.

“Hey man. Glad you could come over,” Balthazar said, gesturing for Pedro to come in. Pedro’s mouth hung open; when he finally realized nothing was coming out, he closed it and stepped through the door. Rather than look back at Balthazar, he made a beeline for Balthy’s room, taking the opportunity of those few moments to compose himself. He’d found his voice again by the time they both reached the bedroom.

“Thanks for inviting me. I really love hearing you work on stuff.” He perched on the edge of the bed as Balthazar sat on the piano bench.

“Yeah, it’s nice to have an impartial ear in the room sometimes.” _Hardly impartial_ , Pedro thought. “Besides…it’s…it’s been too long, y’know?” Balthazar said this hesitantly, glancing up through his lashes as he finished the thought.

Pedro bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah. Too long.” They locked eyes and Pedro felt his chest tightening. A moment later, though, he remembered why it had been so long, and flicked his eyes down shamefully.

“Anyway, I got a little more of the fingerpicking worked out this morning. Want to hear?”

Before long, they had slipped back into their comfortable, friendly banter, and Pedro was finally beginning to relax. He had pulled a book of poetry off the shelf by the bed, and in between chatting about the song and random other things he was half-reading love sonnets while sneaking glances at Balthazar’s concentrated face and nimble fingers. If Balthazar noticed the frequent looks or his choice of reading material, he made no indication of it, which made Pedro feel braver, to the point where he was openly staring.

Suddenly his phone chirped with a text from Ben. _you busy? i’m at the dukes’. think you should come._ He groaned.

“Everything okay?” Balthazar looked up at him, still softly plucking.

“Ben wants me to go over to the Dukes’ house with him.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t mind, if you want.”

Pedro flopped dramatically on his side. “I don’t want to go, I want to stay here, but I feel like I have no choice. Ugh, I wish I could just disappear for while.” He pulled his hair over his eyes, undoing the good work he’d done before coming over.

He couldn’t see Balthazar through his hair, but he imagined the wry half smile on his friend’s face as easily as if he could. “Wish I could help you, mate. You probably don’t have to go, if you really don’t want to…”

“Ugh, no. I’ll go,” he said, texting back and getting up off the bed. “I’m gonna have to face Bea and Hero eventually, so I may as well get it over with.”

Balthazar nodded. “Well, if you want to come over again when you’re done, as long as your parents are cool with it. If it’s not too late, y’know…”

Pedro smiled sadly at his friend. “Thanks, man. I’ll text you, okay?”

Balthazar beamed at him, and Pedro felt a warmth bubble up in his chest. He hesitated, almost about to say something, but thought better of it and turned to leave.


	5. one easy explanation

After Pedro left, Balthazar tried to focus on the song again, but his insides were a mess. After about twenty minutes of failed work on the song, he set the guitar aside and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Urs, it’s me. You busy?”

“Just editing still, but it’s going pretty well, so I can take a break. What’s up?”

Balthazar took a deep breath, trying to settle his roiling stomach. “I invited him over again today. And Urs…he was….staring at me.”

Ursula chuckled. “Is he still there?”

“No! He went to the Dukes’. But he might be coming back. I mean, I said he could come back, if he wanted…”

She laughed again. “That was nice of you.”

“Come on!”

“Sorry, I’m just thinking about how 24 hours ago you didn’t even want to talk to him, and now you don’t want to let go of him.”

“Look, I know I’m pathetic, but I can’t help it, I just—“

“No, not pathetic. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” She sighed. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m just still kind of angry with him is all.”

“Yeah…”

“But _you_ don’t have to stay mad at him, just because I am or Bea is or whatever.”

“Ha. Good thing, too, because I don’t think I could force myself to be mad at him when he looks at me like he did today. Oh my god, Ursula, it was like he was trying to ravish me with his eyes. Is that even possible? Has it been so long since we’ve hung out that I had forgotten something like that, or is this new? This must be new, right? Seriously, what is going on?”

“Well, there’s one easy explanation…” he could hear her smiling through the phone.

“Oh come on. There’s no way! Is there?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, how do we even know if he likes guys? That’s a pretty big stumbling block.”

Ursula just laughed - she was apparently deriving much more entertainment from this conversation than Balthazar was. “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Really? How do you know?”

She hesitated. “Call it a hunch.”

“But…even if he did, there’s no way.”

“Why, though?”

“Because…” He racked his brain, trying to think of an explanation that sounded as logical out loud as the futility of it all felt inside. “Because he liked Bea, remember?”

“So?”

“So he’s clearly not over it. Why else would he still be so upset?”

Ursula thought this over for a moment. Eventually she replied, “For the record, there are a ton of things for him to be upset about right now. And you might be right that he’s not completely over Bea. _Maybe._ But that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t also be interested in you.”

Balthazar sighed, his stomach churning at the words finally spoken aloud. “I guess I’m just so used to thinking that it’s completely impossible…ugh, it still seems impossible. You really think it’s possible?”

A pause. “I’d even go so far as to say it’s likely.”

Balthazar’s stomach couldn’t handle this new information; he was practically queasy.

Ursula continued, “Look, just be normal with him. If he is into you, it’ll happen. And if not, at least you’ll be friends with him again. Unless you don’t want that any more…”

“No, I do,” Balthazar said quickly. “I do. I miss him.”

“Well?”

He sighed. “I suppose I don’t really have any other choice, do I?” The weight of these words hung on the line.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll be watching, so he’ll have hell to pay if he pulls any bullshit on you.”

“I’m more worried about spontaneously combusting the next time I see him,” he said, closing his eyes as a slight shiver traveled through him.

“Well if that happens, I can probably forgive him,” she teased.


	6. still mad

Pedro could hear Bea’s raised voice before he even knocked. The front door was substantial enough that he couldn’t make out what she was saying, but the tone made him flinch. He considered just running back to the relative safety of Balthazar’s house, but this was his responsibility and if he chickened out now, he wasn’t sure if he could face Balthazar again. He knocked firmly.

As the door opened, Bea’s voice got louder, but Ben’s face appeared. “—literally can’t believe you did that,” he heard as Ben shrugged and gestured for him to come in. 

Pedro gave Ben a questioning look, but before he could step inside, Bea nudged Ben aside and blocked the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Ben texted and said I should come over…was that not—“

“Yes, well Bene _dick_ doesn’t live here so he shouldn’t be inviting people over willy nilly, especially not known misogynists.”

“I’ll just go then, shall I…” Pedro closed his eyes in the face of Bea’s familiar bickering tone, acutely remembering why he’d wanted to take her down a peg.

“I thought it would be good to give you guys a chance to talk one on one!” Ben piped up from behind her. “It seemed to help Hero to talk to Claudio after the thing yesterday, so—“

“Well, I’m not Hero and I don’t think it will help, so—“

“But maybe Hero wants to talk to him, did you think of that?”

Pedro was ready to slink away, convinced that neither of them would even notice, but his attention was caught when Bea was suddenly silent. He opened his eyes to find her staring at Ben looking…contrite?

Ben raised his eyebrows at her, then called up the stairs, “Hero! Pedro’s here, do you want to talk to him?”

Pedro was just about ready to let the front porch swallow him up, but he heard Hero’s voice, slightly hoarse, call out, “Sure, I’ll be down in just a minute.” Bea stepped back from the front door, throwing her hands in the air, and Pedro reluctantly followed her and Ben into the living room.

Bea flung herself onto the loveseat, crossing her arms defiantly and scowling at Pedro. Ben sat next to her, placing a hand gingerly on the seat behind her, nearly-but-not-quite touching her. Pedro had to look away to keep from rolling his eyes at them, but he quietly sat in one of the armchairs across from them and waited.

“So!” Ben began hopefully, “Maybe you two could talk while we’re waiting for Hero?” He gestured between them with outstretched fingers.

“Well, I have nothing to say,” Bea said.

Pedro looked down at his hands and took a deep breath. “Look Bea, I’m really sorry. I was wrong, and—“

“Yes, you were wrong. Not that you listened to me when I told you that before.”

“And I was _going to say_ , I know I was a jerk about it, so I totally understand why you’re still mad at me, but—“

“You’re damn right I’m still mad at you! Way to catch on, Pedro.”

“Look, I can just leave,” he said a little louder, struggling to keep his frustration in check.

“No no, that won’t be necessary!” Ben interjected. “Look, Hero’s coming down right now,” he said, more to Bea than to Pedro. Pedro stood and spun to see Hero shuffling in from the foot of the stairs. She was wearing pajamas and her eyes looked puffy, and Pedro was physically pained by the wave of guilt that washed over him. He couldn’t meet her eye, so he waited for her to sit on the couch before taking his seat in the armchair again.

“Hey Pedro, thanks for coming over,” Hero said, her voice not quite as hoarse as it had sounded when she yelled down the stairs, but still noticeably worn out.

“Hero, I…I just want to say,” Pedro began. The guilt was closing around his throat, but he pushed through it. “I’m such a fuck up, and like…I’m just so sorry, y’know?”

Bea started to say something, but Ben put a hand on her arm and she immediately stopped. Pedro tried to ignore them and looked up at Hero. She had a weary smile on her face.

“I forgive you, Pedro. Claudio explained to me what you guys saw, and I saw John’s video, and…I mean, while it was quite foolish of you not to just talk to me about it, I know that you were pretty convinced.”

“You don’t have to make excuses for them, Hero,” Bea said.

“Bea, we talked about this,” she said, turning to face her cousin.

“But—“

“No.” She turned back to Pedro. “Is that all you wanted to say?”

Pedro felt completely disoriented by Hero’s forgiveness, especially in contrast to Bea’s protestations — he couldn’t figure out which felt worse. He blinked, trying to sort his thoughts out. “No, I don’t think you understand, how much I fucked up…”

“Oh, I think I do,” Bea interjected again.

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Pedro yelled, getting up. “You know what? Forget it. This isn’t working. Hero, I’m sorry. Maybe we can talk when you’re home by yourself some time, but this?” he gestured in a cloud around Bea, “is just not gonna work.” He turned to leave.

“Wait, Pedro!” Ben called, getting up to follow him. “We can work this out!”

“Look mate, I said I’m sorry, but until your girlfriend over there can be civil I really don’t see the point of this conversation.”

Ben scoffed nervously at the word “girlfriend,” but put a hand on Pedro’s shoulder. “Look, Hero and I know you’re a good guy, you just need to give Bea some time—“

“No, Ben!” Pedro yanked his arm out of Ben’s grip. “You really don’t get it, do you? _I’m not a good guy._ Just because Bea is fucking impossible to talk to doesn’t mean she’s wrong. You’re just making excuses for me and I don’t need it, okay? Seriously just forget it. I’m out of here.”

He bolted out the front door, slamming it behind him. He didn’t stop walking until a few blocks later, when he collapsed in the grass in some random person’s yard, wondering where he was even going.


	7. dear pedro

Balthazar was surprised when Pedro texted just a few minutes after he got off the phone with Ursula. _well that was shit. feeling terrible. i’d be no fun._

Balthazar grimaced. Even though he knew Pedro was getting what he deserved to some extent, he couldn’t help but want to reach out to his friend, to do whatever he could to take the pain away. He wasn’t actually sure that he’d be able to help Pedro feel better, but not offering was out of the question.

_you don’t have to be fun to come over. you don’t have to entertain me or anything. if you want to go home though that’s cool_

_don’t want to go home either, just a worry-fest without john there. ugh._

_you sure you don’t want to come over?_

The next text took a few minutes to come through.

_you sure you don’t mind me raining on your parade?_

_definitely not. it’s fine, come on._

_k fine, see you soon_

When Pedro showed up, he looked even worse than he’d sounded by text. His hair was all over the place, the back of his shirt and pants were dotted with loose grass, and the scowl on his face could have razed a small city. Wordlessly, the two of them returned to Balthazar’s bedroom, where Pedro faceplanted on the bed.

“You want to talk about it?” Balthazar asked quietly.

An incoherent groan issued from the folds of the quilt. Balthazar waited, and finally Pedro rolled to his side and said petulantly, “no.”

“I could play something for you, if you like…”

“Fine, whatever,” he said, rolling his face back into the blankets.

Feeling reckless from earlier, Balthazar’s first thought was to play “An Ode.” He had written it to cheer Pedro up, after all - well, mostly. Once he got the idea in his head, he couldn’t think of what else to play, so he turned to the piano and hit the opening chords.

Before he even began to sing, though, Pedro groaned. “No! I’m gonna leave if you keep playing that. Stop!”

Balthazar pulled back from the piano as if it had burned him. “Sorry,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Ugh, don’t apologize. I just can’t deal with that ‘great guy’ stuff. I’m such a fucking asshole. Jesus.”

Balthazar couldn’t help but feel sad that the song he’d written for Pedro made him feel so horrible, but this did give him some insight as to why Pedro was so intent to help with the song for Hero. He hadn’t quite realized until now how much Pedro was beating himself up. Rather than wallowing in the hurt of Pedro’s rejection of his song, he resolved to do whatever it took to have Pedro smiling again by the time he left.

“Okay, so, um…what about a Beatles song?”

“Great, fine, whatever. Just not that song.”

Balthazar bit his lip, but picked up his guitar and noodled a bit before going into the intro for “Blackbird.” It was one of the first fingerpicking songs he’d learned how to play on guitar, so he knew it backward and forward. As he played and sang, he watched Pedro; the other boy was still face down on the bed, but his breathing seemed to slow to a calmer rhythm as the song went on. 

When Balthazar finished that song, he waited for Pedro to say something, but Pedro only readjusted his position on the bed, curling up. The scowl was gone, but it had been replaced by a sadness that made Balthazar’s heart hurt. He debated what to play next, hoping that he could perk Pedro up out of his doldrums with a little playfulness.

“How about some more Beatles?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. I love that album.”

“Great.” Balthazar went into another guitar riff, and Pedro nodded his head, a tiny wistful smile on his face.

Balthazar began to sing. “ _Deeeear Pedro, won’t you come out to play?_ ”

When he heard his name, Pedro hid his face in the covers again. “Really, dude?”

“ _Deeear Pedro, greet the brand new daaaaa-ayyyy…_ ”

“You are such a cheeseball, you know that?” He had peeked out from the blankets again, but he had a grin on his face this time. Balthazar grinned back at him.

“ _The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you, deeear Pedro, won’t you come out to play?_ ” He held Pedro’s eyes, smiling as he sang, and Pedro’s smile fell a little, but not in a sad way - in a way that reminded Balth of the way he’d been staring earlier. Balthazar chuckled nervously and looked away, launching into the next verse.

By the time the song was over, Balthazar was hamming it up so much that Pedro was sitting up and smiling, shaking his head at his friend’s antics. “Thanks, man. It’s impossible to be sad with you around - you’re too damn dorky.”

“Glad to hear it. So what do you want to hear next? Your name scans nicely into a lot of pop songs, you know. How about this one?” He strummed a chugging rhythm, then burst into a reedy falsetto. “ _Peeee-eeeee—eeee-edro baaa-aby, Peee-edro, won’t you come out tonight?_ ”

Pedro’s face fell into his hands, his shoulders shaking. Balthazar strummed a flourish, then continued, “Or we could do…” He began picking out a funky bass line. “ _Pedro D. - is - not myyyy lover…_ ” he sang, hoping the flush in his cheeks wasn’t too noticeable.

“No, stop, silly!” Pedro laughed, waving a hand in Balthazar’s direction. “Seriously, you can stop singing to me. I’m already feeling much better, and it’s not like it’s your job to perform for me or whatever.”

“But I like singing to you,” Balthazar said. The words came out more seriously than he’d intended, but he didn’t want to take them back.

“I like it, too,” Pedro replied, holding his gaze.

The tension in the room suddenly heightened, and Balthazar felt the butterflies returning with a vengeance. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words didn’t want to form. A moment later, Pedro’s eyebrows knit together slightly.

“I should…” Pedro began, looking away. “I should probably go. My parents, and all that.”

Balthazar’s heart fell. “Gotcha. Yeah.”

“But um…this was nice. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” He got up and put a warm hand on Balthazar’s shoulder. He pulled his hand away almost immediately, but Balthazar could still feel tingles all up his neck as Pedro left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been updating this fic daily so far, but my writing is not really keeping up with that pace, and I think this is the best place for the story to pause until I can get back to that pace again. So, no update tomorrow, but this will be updating again soon. WATCH THIS SPACE.
> 
> I really hope you're all enjoying this! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3


	8. easier

Pedro felt like he only made it through most of the next week as a result of the small pick-me-ups that Balthazar gave him whenever they saw each other. School was still pretty rough, even though most people were a little less openly hostile than they had been before Ursula posted the video of the vigil for Hero.

His habit was still to seek out Claudio, but the two of them together just brought each other down more. By the end of the day on Monday, they seemed to reach an unspoken agreement to allow some space into their friendship. Bea was still quite angry with Pedro, which meant that Ben avoided him as well, though at least he gave Pedro friendly hopeful looks when they happened to pass each other. Hero might have been willing to talk to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to face her.

Ursula and Meg were a little better. Meg was good for a superficial laugh, but he’d never been particularly close with her individually, so he didn’t see her as a confidante. And Ursula’s knowledge of his predicament made him uncomfortable, worried that she might ask him about Balthazar at any second. As it was, she wouldn’t stop giving Pedro meaningful looks when Balthazar was mentioned, or sometimes even behind his back when he was there.

But the times when Pedro was just with Balthazar, he felt lighter, freer. Like he might eventually have a purpose that didn’t involve hurting people. It was much easier to smile with him there, but also easier to be down without also being angry. Everything was just easier.

That Thursday after school, the two of them staked out a spot on the grass under a tree that had just begun to sprout tiny blossoms. Balthazar had his guitar with him, as usual, although today he’d brought his nice guitar. He said it had a richer sound than his other guitar, but Pedro could only tell the difference because of the dark wood and the mother-of-pearl detailing on the fingerboard. Balthazar was repeating the guitar part for “Sigh Not So” over and over again, trying to get it under his fingers well enough that they could record it that weekend. The instrumental part was gorgeous and intricate, and without the lyrics it lacked that melancholy, guilt-inducing edge, so Pedro just let the sound wash over him, eyes closed in the warm spring sunlight.

When the tears began to leak out, he was completely unprepared. He hadn’t even been thinking about anything in particular, but suddenly he was crying. He tried to wipe the tears away without drawing attention to himself, but his sniffles gave him away and Balthazar stopped playing.

“Hey man, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Pedro took a deep breath. “We still don’t know where John is. It’s been like three weeks and I…I’m scared. This sucks so, so much.” He hadn’t even realized that was how he felt until the words came out of his mouth. He pulled his wrist over his eyes again, turning away from Balthazar slightly.

Balthazar leaned into him, not quite putting his head on Pedro’s shoulder, but moving in that direction. “That really does suck. I’m so sorry.” He paused. “Is there anything I can do to help you feel better?”

Pedro shook his head, sniffling again. “I just feel so useless. Like it’s my fault that he’s gone, and I’m the last person he’d want to come back to again. I almost feel like I should run away, so he can come back.”

“Hey now,” Balthazar said, a hint of panic in his voice, “don’t do that. That wouldn’t help anyone. Think about how freaked out your parents would be. And it might not even work.”

“No, I know, I’m not going to or anything,” Pedro said quickly. The last thing he wanted was for Balthazar to worry about him. “I just…I don’t know what else to do.”

Balthazar sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you, but there might not be anything you can do, except keep hoping for the best.”

Pedro ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. It’s just hard.”

“Mmm…well, I’m always here to listen. You know that, yeah?”

Pedro smiled at the ground, trying to stem the flow of fresh tears that suddenly wanted out. “Yeah, I know.” He chuckled wetly. “You know that you’re amazing, right? It’s important to me that you know that.”

Balthazar bumped him with his shoulder again but didn’t say anything. Unsatisfied with a mere nudge, Pedro leaned over, resting his shoulder on Balthazar’s shoulder, his head on Balthazar’s head, and they simply sat against each other, looking out over the grass in silence.

By the time they got up to head home, Pedro’s tears had dried, and a chilly breeze had begun gusting. Balthazar walked out ahead, and Pedro could see a couple of the tiny flowers had fallen from the tree and stuck in his hair. He seemed like magic, like a fucking anime character, and all Pedro could think was, _what did I ever do to deserve you in my life?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 11/30: Okay, so I'm making progress and I want to post more of this. I'm still not DONE done, but I'm going to try posting a section every other day and hope that that will give me enough time to finish writing. I make no guarantees, but that's my goal for now.


	9. worth the effort

Pedro had walked back to Balthazar’s house with him, but had opted to go home rather than stay and hang out. Although he wouldn’t have sent Pedro home, Balthazar was glad to have some time alone to process what had happened that afternoon. He flopped on his bed, not even noticing he’d put his shoes on the pillow.

It wasn’t that Balthazar had forgotten about John, exactly, just that he hadn’t really thought much about him. He felt guilty realizing that this must have been on Pedro’s mind all week and Balthazar hadn’t once asked him about it, except for that night at Ursula’s. He’d been so wrapped up in the way Pedro had been looking at him during his more cheerful episodes, the way they’d been touching each other accidentally-but-not-really even more than they used to, that he had just been trying to wait out the times that Pedro was in a slump. There to lend an ear, obviously, or to crack a joke to cheer him up, but too distracted to think very deeply about _why_ Pedro would suddenly grow so gloomy apparently out of nowhere.

He pushed himself up on his elbows and brought out his phone, searching for the video that John had put on Ben’s Youtube channel, wondering if watching it again might help him understand why John hadn’t yet come back.

_You never could resist an opportunity to tell me how exactly I didn’t live up to the expectations of our parents, how I didn’t have the capacity to achieve what I should’ve. I could always tell that they were your expectations._ Balthazar was puzzled by that sentiment. Admittedly he hadn’t hung around John all that much, but when he had been there Balthazar had only ever seen Pedro go out of his way to be nice to him, even more so than Pedro usually went out of his way to be inclusive and warm. It usually didn’t work, but that had never seemed like a failing on Pedro’s part.

The more he watched and rewatched the video, the more Balthazar began to get that “someone’s wrong on the internet” feeling. He hated that feeling, but it was unavoidable sometimes, and the difference here was that this was someone he knew in real life, even if John wasn’t there at the moment. He wanted to grab John and shake him, physically turn his head in such a way that he could somehow see Pedro the way Balthazar saw him, as someone who was nearly perfect in all his imperfections. He couldn’t fathom how anyone could actually hate Pedro. Get mad at him, sure, even lash out, but hate him? Even if he was the most popular guy at school. Balthazar could relate to John’s feeling of ostracism; he had certainly had his share of outcast years, before they reached secondary school and suddenly being a music nerd was considered quite cool, rather than nebbish and ridiculous. Even given that feeling, though, why hate the guy who was popular precisely because he tried to welcome everyone?

After another few times through the video, he began to wonder if perhaps John didn’t actually hate Pedro, or if he did, whether there might be other feelings lurking under the surface. He knew it was probably wishful thinking, but it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. After all, Bea had professed to hate Ben for years, but Balthazar had just spent his entire afternoon and evening the day before helping her record a love song for him. Balthazar couldn’t think of anyone he had ever truly hated, but when he imagined what it might feel like to hate someone, he couldn’t picture it feeling cold and indifferent. On the contrary, he imagined intensity, obsession, passion - rather like something else he was all too familiar with.

He had an idea. It wasn’t earth shattering, and there was a good chance that it wouldn’t make any difference in the long run, but anything that could possibly help Pedro and his family was worth the effort. Balthazar got up and plopped in front of his computer, swishing the mouse to wake it up. He just needed to make sure he was remembering something correctly…

Sure enough, when he brought up his mailing list, it was there: johndon97@yahoo.co.nz. He had never figured out whether John had actually signed up for his mailing list at one of his gigs, or if someone had added his address as a joke, but at the moment it didn’t matter.

> _**Subject: An update and an inquiry** _
> 
> _John,_
> 
> _Let me say first that no one asked me to write this letter to you. I’m not going to ask where you are, or why you haven’t come back yet. I’m sure you have good reasons for not getting in touch with your family, so if you don’t write back I won’t be surprised or disappointed._
> 
> _I have seen the video you uploaded to Ben’s channel. I can’t pretend to understand how you feel, but I can say that Pedro was absolutely crushed by what you said. If you wanted to hurt him, you have definitely succeeded, more even than you intended, I think._
> 
> _As you probably know, I care about him very much, so I also can’t pretend to be an unbiased observer. However, I wonder if perhaps you would find him to be different if you came back. He has grown a lot as a result of what’s happened over the last few months, and despite the pain that you inflicted he misses you desperately. I hope you recognize the value in that._
> 
> _Do you remember that time last year that I walked into your living room when you and Cora were planning to steal a maths test, and you asked me not to tell Pedro? I never told him. If you want to write back to me without him knowing, just say the word. I want him to know that you’re safe, but I’m willing to compromise if you’re willing to consider salvaging your relationship with him, and I want to help you with that in any way I can. Please consider it._
> 
> _I hope this letter finds you well.  
>  SBJ_

Balthazar spent over an hour writing and rewriting. He reread the email several times through, tweaking it until he felt that he had said everything that needed to be said. After several read-throughs without making any changes, he bit his lip and finally hit send.


	10. exposed

Balthazar’s mum answered the door for Pedro, and when he wound his way through the house back to the bedroom, Balthazar and Ursula were already in the middle of a dry run for the “Sigh Not So” recording. Balthazar was seated on the end of the futon in the center of the room with the guitar in his lap, and Ursula was mostly blocking the doorway, adjusting and readjusting the camera on a low tripod. Pedro paused behind Ursula, biting his lip as he watched Balthazar sing with his eyes closed. As the final chord rang, Balthazar noticed Pedro and gave him a quiet smile.

“We’re just about ready on the angle,” Ursula said, though she was still adjusting the camera, “but I think we need a bit more light in here. Any ideas? Oh, hey Pedro,” she said as she backed up and bumped into him.

“Hey, sorry I’m a bit late,” he said. “Had to take care of some family stuff.” Balthazar raised an eyebrow at him, but he looked away. In the last couple days since he’d cried under the tree, he’d begun to feel raw, exposed. The more he thought about it, the more he wished that he’d been able to just man up and hold it in. He was glad it had happened with Balthazar and not with anyone else, but it was still incredibly uncomfortable knowing that he had let go of himself like that. As such, he made a vow to himself not to talk about John any more, not even with Balthazar, and certainly not with Ursula. She already knew way too much about how he was feeling.

“So, lighting ideas?” Pedro jumped on the best topic of distraction he could think of. “Where do you want the light to come from? Are you thinking like a lamp?”

“Would fairy lights work?” Balthazar asked. “I love the fairy lights in Hero’s room. They always make their videos look so much nicer.”

“Ooh, fairy lights!” Ursula said. “Good idea. Do you have any?”

“I think so? Let me go ask my mum.” Balthazar set his guitar in its stand, then squeezed around Ursula and Pedro to get through the door. The space was tight, and Pedro was feeling completely in the way, so they ended up face to face as Balthazar brushed past. Pedro held his breath, flicking his eyes around Balthazar’s face but unable to make eye contact.

When the moment had passed and Balthazar had disappeared down the hall, Pedro staked out a spot where he could sit and be out of Ursula’s way. He wove around her to a small stool that held a ukulele, moved the instrument to the floor in the corner, and perched on the stool.

“So,” Ursula began, her attention still apparently focused on the camera. “I heard you had an incident with Bea last weekend.”

Pedro frowned. “Yeah. I think she’s not ready to talk to me yet.”

“Mmm. Did you talk to Hero?”

“Briefly.” He hung his head and picked at a tiny hangnail on his thumb.

“Mmm,” she said again. After a pause, she continued, “I was thinking maybe you and Balth should get together and invite Hero over to watch this, once we post it. Tomorrow afternoon or something.”

Pedro shrugged. “We could, I guess. I don’t know if I would need to be there.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno…I want her to hear it, but I feel like Balthazar deserves the credit for this. He did all the actual work. All I did was suggest that he make the video.”

“And you don’t think that would be meaningful to her?”

“Maybe…” Pedro actually thought that it probably would be, or at least he had when he suggested it initially. But he hadn’t been prepared for how awful he felt when he’d tried talking to Hero one on one. Suggesting a video now seemed like a tiny pittance to redress the harm he had done, so minuscule an effort as to be insulting.

“Just think about it,” Ursula said, her voice breezy. “And how are things with you and Balthazar?”

He choked, blindsided. “What…do you mean?”

“I mean you told me you can’t stop thinking about him. So are you going to do anything about it?”

“Ursula! He could come back at any second,” Pedro hissed.

“Well you’d better tell me before he does, then.”

Pedro shook his head and muttered, “I don’t…I mean…what should I even do?”

Ursula tore her eyes off the camera and shot him a withering look.

He pulled at his hair in exasperation. “Things are just so weird right now. Everything’s fucked up. I feel like I need to fix that before I…before we…”

“Found them,” Balthazar said, stepping around Ursula with a bundle of lights dangling from his fist. Pedro nearly jumped off the stool, but tried to recover his composure as quickly as possible.

“Great!” Ursula said. “Pedro, why don’t you help put those up? How about over the window there?” 

Pedro stood. His legs were shaky from the adrenaline rush, but he managed to navigate around the futon to where Balthazar was trying, unsuccessfully, to reach the curtain rod.

“You’ve got a couple inches on me,” Balthazar said, “do you want to try?” Pedro nodded and took the strand of lights from Balthazar. Their hands accidentally grazed, and Pedro flinched back. Balthazar gave him a curious look, but he put on a straight face and pretended that hanging the fairy lights was the Most Important Thing, requiring all of his attention.

The rest of the setup came together quickly, so they began filming. Pedro simply stood off to the side, trying not to become a distraction, but he couldn’t look away as Balthazar played, which meant that every so often, Balthazar would glance up at him. Pedro was surprised, though, that Balthazar looked at him when he sang “be you blithe and bonny,” and “sing no more of dumps so dull and heavy.” It didn’t seem right for Balthazar to try to use this song to him cheer up, when it was meant for Hero. If anything, Pedro was expecting a look at “men were deceivers ever;” that line felt like his life sentence.

They only ended up needing a few takes of the song, as both Balthazar and Ursula had meticulously prepared their respective roles, so Pedro began to help Ursula disassemble the camera equipment as Balthazar put his guitar away.

“By the way,” Ursula said, “I was thinking of organizing a picnic next weekend. What do you guys think?”

“Sounds like fun,” Balthazar said, nodding.

“With who?” Pedro asked warily.

“Well, I thought I might invite everyone. Things have just been so weird lately, so I thought if we could just fix that by having some fun all together, we could put it all behind us and move on with our lives.”

Pedro cringed at his words thrown back in his face. Ursula was wonderful and talented, but damn if she wasn’t a world-class meddler. He raised an eyebrow at her; she smiled back at him.

“Oh shit,” Balthazar said. Pedro glanced over at him, and he was looking at his phone in shock.

“What’s wrong?” Pedro asked, his heart beating faster.

Balthazar looked up, as if suddenly realizing there were other people in the room. “Oh! No. It’s nothing, I just…have something I need to take care of. I, um, I hate to kick you guys out, but can you maybe finish editing at your place? Or at yours, Ursula?”

“Of course, but…are you sure you’re okay?” Pedro hated to leave in uncertainty like this. He glanced at Ursula, who was also frowning at Balthazar.

“I promise. It’s all good. I just forgot about this thing, so I just have to do it and get it over with. That’s all.” His smile was slightly strained, but he was nodding emphatically. “I’ll still be around tomorrow, if you want to show Hero the video. Your place at 2?”

“Yeah, sure,” Pedro said. He still wasn’t sold on the value of him being there for Hero watching the video, but Balthazar had been excited when Ursula suggested it to him, so he felt he couldn’t refuse. “Ursula, do you want me to finish the editing and upload this?”

“That would be great,” she said. As Pedro wended his way to the door, Ursula slunk past him and leaned over to whisper in Balthazar’s ear. Pedro dawdled in the doorway, curious as to whether Balth would tell Ursula what was going on but also hesitant to intrude. They only exchanged a few words, though, before she stood up straight again and Balthazar ushered them both out of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm now tentatively, hesitantly saying that I think this fic will end up being 17 chapters...


	11. how things are different

All he had seen was the notification on his phone: _New message from johndon97@yahoo.co.nz, Subject: RE: An update and an inquiry_. There was no way he could trust himself to read the message with Pedro there in the room, so as much as he would have liked for Pedro and Ursula to stay and hang out while they edited, he knew he’d have to get rid of them.

Once he escorted them out the front door, he returned to his bedroom and pulled up his email.

> _**Subject: RE: An update and an inquiry** _
> 
> _don’t tell anyone esp. p i wrote to you. not sure if i’m coming back yet or not. also not sure it’s worth trying to salvage anything. i’m only writing because i want to know how things are different, with p but also with hero. j_

Balthazar read and reread the short message several times. It felt anticlimactic, like the kind of email you might get from a study partner about scheduling a revision session. But it was an opening, which was better than nothing. He settled in at his keyboard, trying to parse the bird’s nest of thoughts that followed the prompt “how are things different?” How was anything not different? Pedro was…still Pedro, but like a different flavor of Pedro. A more complex, intriguing, humble Pedro. Describing that to someone who claimed to hate him, though, seemed like a lost cause.

As for Hero, Balthazar hadn’t talked to her much. He’d chatted with her briefly when he was at their house helping Beatrice with the song, but that video hadn’t exactly been a low-effort affair - Bea was so contrary it bordered on ridiculous - so he didn’t have much time to spare. And at school, he’d been indulging in the ability to hang out with Pedro again, and Pedro wasn’t ready to talk to Hero. Balthazar was hoping that tomorrow would help with that, but up to this point he’d had to choose between Pedro and Hero. He felt a tiny bit guilty making that choice, but ultimately he knew that after staying away from Pedro for weeks before the vigil, now that they were on good terms again he couldn’t bring himself to stay away.

When the screen suddenly went to sleep, he realized he’d been sitting there not typing a reply to John for far too long. He swished the mouse and reread the email, memorizing it, and decided to take a day to formulate the best response.

 

***

 

“Balthy!” Hero waved. She was approaching Pedro’s house just as Balthazar did, but from the opposite direction. “How are you?”

“Yeah, good. You?”

She reached out to give him a hug. “Good. Excited to see this video.”

“I hope you like it,” he said, ducking his head. He didn’t normally get very anxious about sharing his songs, but he felt that this one held a bit more meaning than normal, and he was quite proud of how it had turned out, which made him slightly self conscious.

“I’m sure that I will,” she said, smiling. “How’s Pedro been? I was surprised that he invited me…after Bea chased him out last weekend, I thought I might never see him again.”

Balthazar shook his head. “He’ll be fine eventually, I think. He’s been harder on himself than anyone, even Beatrice.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that impression.”

“But are you…” Balthazar began, trying to find a delicate way to probe for answers to John’s question. “Are you ready to forgive him?”

Hero took a deep breath. “I think so. It’s pretty clear he knows what he did.”

Balthazar nodded. They were still standing in the Donaldson’s front yard when the front door opened and Pedro peeked his head outside.

“Hey, there, you two. Are you gonna come in or what?” Pedro looked cheerful, if a bit artificially so. Balthazar hoped this meant he’d be in a better place today than he had been the last few days.

“Yup, we’re coming!” Hero said.

The two of them followed Pedro in the front door and into his bedroom, where Pedro gestured to his desk chair for Hero. “Can I get you anything? Tea? Lemonade?”

She sat primly. “Mmm, tea sounds good.”

“I’ll get it,” Balthazar offered. “You two stay here. You can watch without me, if you want.” Pedro glanced at him, and Balthazar nodded assuringly back at him, then slipped into the kitchen.

Pedro’s mum was sitting at the kitchen table when Balthazar went to put the kettle on. “Oh, hello Balthazar. You need any help?” she asked absentmindedly as he clattered in the cabinet for mugs.

“Hi Ann. I’ve got it - don’t trouble yourself. I know where the tea makings are.”

“Right, sure. Help yourself.” She buried her head back in the papers strewn on the table. He was tempted to ask her how she was doing, but unfortunately it was pretty evident - the anxiety radiated off her frame, permeating the whole kitchen. He thought of his promise to John not to tell anyone that they had been in contact with each other. It pained him not to be able to say anything to make her feel better, but he knew not saying anything was for the best. Unless John told him where he was or when he might come back, it could only give her false hope.

Once the kettle boiled, he carefully poured three mugs of Dilmah, dug a tray out from next to the oven, and brought the tea back to Pedro’s bedroom. Pedro and Hero weren’t watching the video, but instead were chatting quietly.

“…really, it’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m happy to let things go back to normal. I can’t speak for Bea, but…”

“Just know that I…I’m so glad you’re okay. And I’m sorry.”

Balthazar cleared his throat, and Pedro moved aside to make space on the desk for the tea.

“I said you didn’t have to wait for me, you know.”

“I wanted to,” Pedro said, looking up at him. “Besides, this was good.” He had a warm optimism in his eyes that lifted Balthazar’s heart.

Hero reached for one of the mugs. “I wanted to wait for you, too. But now that we’ve got our tea, I think we’re all ready, yeah?” She hit play.

Balthazar hung back a bit. He always had a conflicted feeling watching himself perform, always noticed little mistakes that no one else probably knew about, always overanalyzed all his random facial expressions, which inevitably took him by surprise. He hadn’t realized how expressive his face was while he played until he’d begun recording videos of himself. In this particular video, he couldn’t help but notice that he kept smiling up in the direction of where he knew Pedro had been standing off camera when they filmed it. He felt his face getting hot, convinced that Hero would see through him and know that the song had been as much for Pedro as it had been for her.

When it drew to a close, the room fell silent. Hero spoke up quietly, “Can we watch it again?” She sounded slightly choked up. Pedro obediently hit replay.

This time, Balthazar watched Hero. She was surreptitiously wiping tears off her cheeks as he sang. Pedro glanced at her a couple times, but seemed mostly to be fixated on the song.

“That was…absolutely lovely,” Hero said slowly as it came to a close the second time. “Thank you both so much. I kind of want to just watch and rewatch that all afternoon.”

Pedro spoke quickly. “Balthazar is the one who deserves all the credit. He’s the one who wrote it.” He looked up at Balthazar with an admiration in his eyes that Balth could barely stand to bask in.

“I might not have finished it without your encouragement, though. Pedro really wanted for you to see this, Hero.”

She nodded and scrolled the window down slightly. “Yeah, I can see that you uploaded it, too, Pedro.” She turned around. “I really appreciate it - both of you.”

Balthazar hadn’t realized that Pedro had left a description from him on the video, and leaned over to read it.

 

_Another song by Balthazar. Genuine as always._

_Pedro_

 

This struck him right in the gut. What a difference from what Pedro had written for “An Ode.” He thought again about John’s question - how are things different? But if this meant what he thought it might, then Ursula was right, and this was one thing which Balthazar wasn’t sure he wanted to explain to John, or at least not yet.

They watched it a few more times while finishing their tea, chatting comfortably in between. Pedro seemed relatively at ease, which he hadn’t been around Hero at all since before the birthday party; Balthazar breathed a little easier.

“Ursula told me she’s planning a picnic for next weekend,” Hero mentioned. “I’m excited - I think it’ll be great to just put all this in the past.”

Pedro tensed. “Are you sure that’ll be possible? I mean, you saw how Bea treated me when I came over last weekend…”

She narrowed her eyes, contemplating. “Yeah…but in the past few days she’s seemed a little more level-headed. She didn’t even try to forbid me from coming over here today, so that seems like a good sign. I can talk to her about it, if you like.”

Pedro picked at his fingernails. “I mean, do you really think it’s worth a shot? This is actually what you want? Don’t let Ursula force you into anything. God knows she can be persuasive when she wants to be.”

“Nah, it’s what I want,” Hero laughed. “We’ve already talked about it. I’ll talk to Bea and make sure she knows she doesn’t need to be angry on my behalf. But I really just want everything to go back to normal again.”

Balthazar nodded. “I agree. You’ve made your apologies, Pedro, and so have Claudio and Robbie.”

“John, though…” Pedro began, trailing off.

Hero seemed to gather her thoughts, then said, “Have you still had no word from him?”

Pedro’s head fell, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. Hero looked to Balthazar when Pedro didn’t elaborate. He was torn - he wanted to answer Hero’s question, but he didn’t want to break anyone’s confidences, John’s or Pedro’s. In the end he opted to speak only for himself, saying, “I think I understand why he left, but it’s sad. I just hope he’s okay.”

“Me too,” Hero said quickly. “I can’t imagine how hard this must have been for you and your parents, Pedro. If Leo or Bea disappeared like that, I’d be a wreck.”

Pedro shook his head. “Hero, you are the last person who should feel sorry for me or John right now. Seriously, it’s okay to still be angry at us.”

She sighed. “Even if I am a bit angry, I still want you to be okay. That’s what it means to be friends, yeah?” She nudged his knee playfully. “Anyway, if you do get in touch with John, you can tell him I’d be happy for him to come back, for whatever that’s worth. Maybe I’ll mention it in my next video, actually…I don’t know if he’d watch it, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

Balthazar was satisfied that he had correctly guessed how Hero might feel. He tucked away what she said, saving her words for his email.

“I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be in touch with John,” Pedro sighed, “but I’m glad to hear it. You’re too good for your own good, Hero.”

She just smiled modestly. “Can we watch the song again? It was so wonderful.”

“Yeah, of course,” Pedro said, perking up slightly. Balthazar smiled. It seemed that helping Pedro be happy again wasn’t going to be straightforward or easy, but every so often he got a glimpse of the old Pedro, and he couldn’t fight the bubble of hope in his chest.


	12. skirting the question

Pedro had been getting behind on his classwork over the last few weeks, unable to focus on much of anything between thinking about Hero, Bea, John, and Balthazar. Now that he felt he’d made a small amends to Hero, though, it was a little easier to think again, so he and Balthazar decided it would be a good idea to have a study session together after school to work on their English paper, which was due the following week.

Balthazar was lying on Pedro’s bed with his side against the wall, a plastic-bound library copy of _Doctor Faustus_ dangling over his face. Pedro was sitting at the desk, trying to take notes on the text but continually getting distracted by the sliver of skin peeking through where Balthazar’s t-shirt had hiked up above the waistband of his jeans.

“‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’” Balthazar intoned, mock-seriously. “Huh, so that’s where that quote comes from. I always wondered.”

“Yeah…” Pedro said vaguely. He scoped out the bed situation, wondering if he could move, and how close would be too close to sit.

“It’s quite romantic, though, don’t you think? I love this quote.” He moved the book to look over at Pedro and put on his best silly-serious voice again, asking, “Or are you unmoved by words of love?”

“What?” Pedro’s stomach clenched in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Balthazar chuckled. “I was just thinking about what you said about Ben’s song for Beatrice the other day.”

Pedro let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Oh, that. Well there’s a pretty big world of difference between Christopher Marlowe and the poetical stylings of one Benedick Hobbes.”

“Heh, I suppose you’re right about that. He wasn’t exactly born under a rhyming planet.”

“No kidding.” Pedro couldn’t resist - he joined Balthazar on the bed, laying with his head next to Balthazar’s feet and vice versa. He let his arm fall over Balth’s legs. “That must have been painful for you, helping him with that ridiculous song.”

“Nah,” Balthazar said, shifting slightly so that his toes tucked perfectly under Pedro’s arm. “It was sweet, I thought. He got really into it. It was fun.”

“Sweet is one word for it, I suppose,” Pedro scoffed.

“Yeah? What word would you use?”

“I dunno. Ludicrous?”

“Oh come on, mate. Why aren’t you happy for them?”

Pedro sighed. “I am happy for them, it’s just weird. I thought the whole Love Gods thing was all a joke.”

“Really? You were the one who said you thought they were perfect for each other…” He nudged Pedro with a gentle elbow to the thigh.

“I know, it’s just…weird.” 

“You aren’t…are you still not over Beatrice?” Balthazar asked quietly.

“No, I am…” Pedro paused, not sure how best to explain exactly what was so off to him about the two of them. “It’s not that I’m not over her, it’s just…because I did like her, before, it’s weird to see her with Ben. _Especially_ with Ben.”

“Why especially with Ben?”

“Well…” Pedro took a deep breath, figuring this was the perfect opportunity to bring this up but still struggling to muster the courage. “I kinda had a crush on him last year, so it’s like two people that I both liked at one point, and now they’re together, and not with me…not that I want to be with either of them or anything, obviously, it’s just…weird, y’know?”

“Mmm.” Balthazar’s answer was noncommittal, which made Pedro feel antsy all of the sudden. Pedro was accustomed to Balthazar’s reserved nature, even appreciated it much of the time, but right at this moment he wished Balth would just address the giant elephant that had stepped into the room.

“That doesn’t surprise you, then? That I had a crush on Ben?” He stared hard at the ceiling, glad that he didn’t have to look at Balthazar while they had this conversation.

“I dunno. Maybe a little…mostly because Ben was kind of an immature dick last year.”

Pedro laughed at this unexpected comment, then began to fidget when he realized Balthazar was still skirting the question. “So the whole….liking guys…and girls…thing…?”

“It’s cool, man. I mean, it’d be pretty shitty of me to judge you for that, right?”

“I guess…” Pedro trailed off. He didn’t know how to proceed from here, because although he had a pretty clear idea from offhand comments that Balthazar wasn’t straight, they had never actually had a conversation about it. Balthazar had always been extremely private about his love life; it was one of a very few topics that was an unspoken taboo between them. “So do you…also…?”

“Like guys and girls, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

Now it was Balthazar’s turn to fidget. “Not exactly. Not like you, I don’t think. I had a small crush on Ursula for a while, but she’s the only girl I’ve ever been interested in, and that was ages ago.”

“Did you ever tell her?”

“Nah. It went away. For all she knows, I’m gay. I mean, I basically am, I guess.”

Something in Balthazar’s tone made Pedro feel like there was some missing information here. He felt his stomach begin to churn. “Basically? What does that mean?”

There was a long silence, long enough that Pedro raised his head to see Balthazar chewing on a thumbnail, thinking hard. “Well, I’m not really interested in many people that way at all.”

This news nearly knocked the wind out of him. Had Pedro imagined all the times he thought maybe Balthazar was flirting with him?

“Not many?”

Balthazar took a deep breath. “Do you know what demisexual means?”

Pedro thought back to the various terms he’d stumbled on while searching for his own answers. “I…think so?”

“Well, that’s what I am. I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

“So you only like people - guys, I guess - once you get to know them really well?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” The implication of this settled in. He swallowed hard.

“So, does anyone else know that you’re…whatever you identify as?” Balthazar asked.

Pedro was too busy wondering how Balthazar may or may not feel about him to think before he spoke. “Ha, no. Are you kidding? Can you imagine what the football team guys would say if they knew I was bi? And John would never stop laughing.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted it. “I mean, not that being out is a bad thing, obviously, it’s just…”

“No, I get it,” Balthazar said. “It’s just not for you right now.”

Pedro smacked himself in the face. If he was ever going to work up to telling Balthazar how he felt, implying he’d be embarrassed to go public with their nascent relationship was a terrible place to start. Somehow, up to this point he’d been able to separate in his mind wanting to be with Balthazar from wanting to maintain his social image, but in that moment it hit him like a lightning bolt just how absurd that was.

“I mean, it’s not like I haven’t thought about it,” Pedro began, trying to backtrack. “It’s just…easier…not to?” He could hear exactly how pathetic he sounded, and it made him cringe.

“You gotta do it in your own time.” Of course - wonderful, understanding Balthazar. “It’ll happen if you want it to. I mean, you just came out to me, right? So it’s not impossible.”

“Yeah, but you’re…” Pedro didn’t know how to finish this thought - _easy to talk to? my best friend? perfection incarnate? driving me to distraction by lying next to me in my bed?_ Anything he could say was either not enough or way too much. He was suddenly desperate to change the subject, worried that he might spill his guts about everything if he didn’t. “You’re a total dork, so y’know.” He reached over and tickled Balthazar’s feet.

“Hey! Not fair!” Balthazar curled up, giggling, then turned to tickle Pedro’s feet.

“What?! That was totally unprovoked,” Pedro laughed. They writhed, laughing and tickling each other, until Balthazar almost kicked Pedro in the chin.

“Shit! Sorry! Okay, enough,” he said, catching his breath and pulling his feet up away from Pedro’s hands. “We should probably work on _Doctor Faustus_ again.” He sat up and dug the book out from under where he’d rolled on top of it.

Pedro sat up too. His skin was on fire and his breath hadn’t caught up with him yet. There was little chance he’d be able to focus on reading Elizabethan tragedy, but he was willing to try, if only for Balthazar’s sake.


	13. correspondence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Emily (aeternamente) for giving this chapter a second pair of eyes <3

When he’d gotten home from Pedro’s house on Sunday after spending the afternoon with Hero, Balthazar had written the following email to John:

> _**Subject: RE: RE: An update and an inquiry** _
> 
> _John,_
> 
> _Thank you for writing back to me. I promise I won’t tell Pedro._
> 
> _It’s difficult to say what precisely is different, especially when I don’t know what your concerns are. It’s perhaps easier with Hero; she has returned to school, and seems to be on good terms with everyone again, even Claudio, despite Beatrice’s residual anger (you should be aware of that, probably). I would venture to guess that if Hero’s willing to forgive both Claudio and Pedro, you shouldn’t have to worry about her holding a grudge against you._
> 
> _Pedro is more complicated. He is still very much the same person, but with perspective. I think he is more aware now of how his actions affect people, especially given his popularity (although that has waned since the incident). Unfortunately that awareness has also come with a hearty dose of self-loathing. I hope you won’t mind me saying that I think the two of you are more similar than you realize._
> 
> _It saddens me to hear that you’re not sure whether it’s worth salvaging your relationship with him, and I wonder if that’s because of a hurt on your part or a worry for how you might be received on his part. You may or may not believe me, but I want to reiterate that he is worried for you and misses you. I know that you are a very observant person, but I suspect that there are things about him that you haven’t yet seen._
> 
> _Does this answer your question? Please let me know.  
>  Cheers,  
>  SBJ_

He had spent the next few days checking his email fairly obsessively, to no avail. But after the conversation he’d had with Pedro that afternoon, Balthazar had been completely distracted. So Pedro was bi - somehow it wasn’t a surprise, even though a little over a week ago Balthazar had been convinced that Pedro could never be interested in guys. But he wasn’t out to anyone else, it seemed, which of course brought its own problems. 

Balthazar felt good about finally, properly coming out to Pedro, though. He had wanted to, many times in the past, but it was always too hard to figure out how to say it without including the corollary, “also by the way, I’m hopelessly in love with you - hope that’s cool.” Frankly, he wasn’t sure how they had avoided that this time either.  
He was so caught up in reflecting on their earlier conversation that he didn’t even think to check his email until the next morning before school. When he did, he found a response that had been waiting for about 15 hours, even more brief than the previous email had been:

> _**Subject: RE: RE: RE: An update and an inquiry** _
> 
> _why are you actually doing this? why does p deserve this from you? j_

Balthazar sighed. He checked the clock - still half an hour left before he had to leave the house, so he ran to the kitchen, grabbed some toast and a banana, and returned to the computer. Ideally, he would have wanted to give himself more time to contemplate the best response, but given the fact that John had been gone for a month, it seemed more important to get the wheels moving if that was possible. As he munched on his breakfast, he considered what might be the best way to entice John to return.

His phone buzzed - Ursula was texting him: _How was that study session yesterday? Pedro just left a weird update on Facebook…_ He felt a little annoyed; he really didn’t have time to be talking to Ursula when he needed to be writing to John. Unfortunately, with that information at hand, he couldn’t simply ignore it, so he opened another tab and navigated to Facebook.

_**PEDRO DONALDSON:** being honest feels surprisingly good. maybe i should try it more often._

Balthazar smiled. He was relieved that Pedro wasn’t regretting coming out to him, and hoped that maybe this meant he’d be ready to let other people know, or even to tell Balthazar how he felt (for the past several days, Balthazar had no longer been able to convince himself that Pedro wasn’t at least a little bit interested in him. He knew it was probably tempting fate, but he couldn’t resist slowly allowing himself to get accustomed to that feeling. It made him feel warm and bubbly whenever he stopped to think of it).

He texted back to Ursula: _not what you think, but it’s still good. in a rush, talk later_

She pinged back quickly: _Maybe something will happen at the picnic???_

The picnic - Ursula had specifically arranged that so that everyone could hang out again and get beyond the hurt and betrayal that had come before. Maybe…? He flipped back to his email tab.

> _**Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: An update and an inquiry** _
> 
> _John,_
> 
> _I honestly hadn’t thought before about whether Pedro deserves my help, because I care about him, so I want to help him whether he deserves it or not. But I believe that he does. I believe he deserves to show you that he can be the brother that you need him to be._
> 
> _Ursula has arranged a picnic for this Saturday, for the purpose of getting everyone together and having fun, mending broken bonds. Not in apology and sadness, like the vigil a couple weekends ago, but in happiness. If you happen to find yourself at the top of the big hill Saturday afternoon, I think your presence would not go amiss. If nothing else, I can guarantee that I will be there for you if you need it._
> 
> _Think about it.  
>  SBJ_

Without a second glance, Balthazar hit send, grabbed the remnants of his breakfast, and dashed out the door.


	14. face the music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got huge help on this one from Emily (aeternamente), so THANK YOU!!!

Despite the blustery weather, Balthazar felt optimistic that the picnic would turn out well. There had been some initial awkward tension between Pedro and Beatrice when they all met up at the Duke’s house to pack up food and sort out carpools, but once they reached the top of the hill the absurdity of the wind seemed to take the edge off everything.

When Beatrice offered to give Hero a piggyback ride over a puddle in the parking lot, Pedro declared, “Piggyback race!” and grabbed Balthazar’s arm, slinging it across his shoulders.

“We’ve got a head start - no take backs!” Bea called out over her shoulder, running off despite Hero’s protests.

“Oh shit, let’s go!” Ben shouted, picking up a laughing Claudio. “We will waste you!”

“No way, mate!” Pedro yelled back. Then he added quietly with a glint of mischief in his eye, “Come on, up you go.”

Balthazar grinned and hopped up, Pedro catching him under his knees. Pedro’s scent, clean and slightly spicy, was so overwhelming at the back of his neck that at first Balthazar thought he might literally melt into the warm breadth of his back. The jostle of his gait kept things firmly in the realm of the silly, however, and neither of them stopped laughing the whole way up the grass. It wasn’t until Ursula yelled for help with the food that Balthazar even remembered there was anyone else there with them.

Once the blanket and all the food had been laid out, Pedro patted the seat next to him for Balthazar to sit. He felt pleased that there was no question of whether he and Pedro would sit next to each other, and happily took his spot as the others settled in. Pedro was as jovial as Balthazar had seen him in the last few months, which translated to a bump of the knee, a warm gaze, a brush of hands, a teasing smile. As they all began to eat, Bea and Ben’s overt affection for each other seemed to distract everyone else from the various glances and nudges they shared, though Balthazar felt like it must be the most obvious thing in the world.

So when Pedro suddenly went stonefaced and marched away, Balthazar had a moment of panic, before he turned to see John standing on the far hill, approaching the picnic slowly but deliberately. As Pedro went to meet his brother, Balthazar smiled down at his hands, then looked back up to confirm what he suspected - that the meeting would be a happy one.

John’s eyes grazed over everyone present as they returned, locking with Balthazar’s only briefly before looking away again, but as he crouched next to Balthazar he murmured, “Hey man.”

“Good to see you,” Balthazar smiled.

As John sat down, everyone stepped in to offer him chips, muffins, cookies. Balthazar tried to hand him the cookie he himself had been about to eat. John chuckled nervously, instead accepting a cookie from the box Hero held out for him.

Balthazar was surprised and a little impressed with how well John slipped into the atmosphere of the gathering, interjecting here and there into Pedro and Claudio’s banter, and smiling more than he ever had, at least to Balthazar’s recollection. Particularly after he spoke with Hero, John even seemed amiable, if still a bit reserved.

And Pedro was plainly relieved. His sunny, flirty attitude became almost exaggerated which, for Balthazar, culminated when he ate a piece of chocolate out of Balthazar’s hand. Balth wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed, but he couldn’t have failed to notice Pedro’s lips grazing his fingers ever so slightly. It was no more than might have been an accident - as much as eating out of someone’s hand could be considered “an accident” - but that didn’t mean Balthazar didn’t feel a thrill up his spine when it happened.

All in all, Balthazar felt confident that he could declare his little interference on Pedro’s behalf a success.

When the food had been put away and the gang had unanimously voted to slide down the hill, he hung back to have a word with John.

“Thanks for coming, mate.”

John nodded, looking out over the city. “I figured it was time to face the music,” he said slowly.

“Do your parents know you’re back?”

John ran a hand through his hair, an uncanny echo of Pedro’s signature thoughtful move. “I gave them a call. Should probably head over there soon.”

“My offer still stands, by the way.”

“Your offer?”

“To help you reconcile. If there’s anything I can do. I don’t know if there is, but…y’know.”

John chuckled. “You’re far too noble for us Donaldson boys, Balthazar. We’ll see.” He meandered over to the hill to select a piece of cardboard, where Pedro was ready to meet Balthazar’s eye, beaming.

***

When the picnic relocated, Balthazar found himself in the midst of an impromptu game of football. It wasn’t his favorite pastime - not even close - but he enjoyed participating in something that Pedro was passionate about, and if that meant awkwardly kicking a ball and running around a bit, then so be it.

Ursula had been hanging back, filming for most of the afternoon, but during a lull in the game while the others were arguing about goal boundaries, she approached Balthazar.

“So? Having fun?”

Balthazar nodded, slightly out of breath. “Yeah, it’s been a good day.”

“It looks like it,” she said, smirking. “Any…news to report?” She caught his eye in that curious, attentive way she had.

“Nope, just hanging out. Having fun.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but he couldn’t tame the grin taking over his face.

“Uh huh. Okay.” She made no effort to hide her skepticism. “But you will tell me if something happens, right?”

“Yes, of course I will. But I’m not bothered, honestly. This is nice.”

“Nice” was an understatement, of course. Balthazar’s heart was so light he could barely feel the ground beneath his feet.

Until Pedro suggested Truth or Dare.

When Ben said, “Everyone just cheats. You pick truth, and then you just tell a lie. It’s easy!” he was really asking for it, so much so that Balthazar wondered if he hadn’t singled himself out intentionally. Balthazar nodded, waiting for the inevitable response.

“Okay - truth or dare?” Pedro asked.

Ben hesitated. “Truth.”

“Everyone picks truth…what’s this then?”

“Yeah, Beatrice,” Hero chimed in.

“Yeah, you two…?” Balthazar couldn’t resist; he wanted to see them try to lie to his face after he collectively spent more than half a day helping them write each other songs.

Their flat denial in the face of overwhelming evidence, including an entire afternoon just spent all over each other, didn’t disappoint. Balthazar was perfectly happy to laugh at their absurdity along with everyone else, until he noticed Pedro’s reaction. When Claudio showed Beatrice the video of Ben’s song, Pedro immediately withdrew. At first, Balthazar tried to ignore the frustration painted over his features, but Pedro shot him a look that carried overtones of the cynical remarks he had already made about the song. Balthazar laughed, because he didn’t know how else to respond, but it didn’t sit well with him.

He thought of what Pedro had said earlier that week - “it’s two people that I both liked at one point, and now they’re together, and not with me.” Balthazar could suddenly see hints of this in Pedro’s attitude to Bea and Ben in general - memories of all the times he and Pedro had laughed together about the two of them took on a new shade of meaning. Certain dynamics of the football game earlier popped out in his mind. Even Pedro’s suggestion of a race at the beginning of the day now seemed like it may have been about some strange competition with them, as much as it was also an opportunity to get close to Balthazar.

And now that Pedro’s affable mood had turned sour, Balthazar felt irked. Part of it was, of course, jealousy that Pedro still seemed to be hung up on the two of them, but the more irritating part was seeing Pedro so fixated on a problem for which the only solution was to let go. He’d done such a good job in the past few weeks of repairing things with everyone else that it seemed a shame for him to get caught up in some old festering hurt.

Balthazar began to feel even worse when Pedro discovered that Bea had written a song for Ben as well. Pedro’s eagerness to watch the video almost matched Ben’s, though his gloomy intensity couldn’t have been further from Ben’s smitten amusement. The discomfort Balthazar felt in seeing Pedro’s reaction to her video was a nettle in an otherwise nearly-perfect day. He began to hope that someone would change the subject, so that Pedro might simply forget about it, though he knew that was unlikely.

Of course, Beatrice’s protestations could only get her so far, and pretty soon she and Ben were heavily making out in front of everyone.

“Okay, okay, we get it!” Pedro shouted. Everyone else was laughing and hooting. Balthazar hoped he correctly noted a hint of amusement in Pedro’s eyes as Bea and Ben pulled away from each other with shit-eating grins on their faces. “Enough!”

“Eager to carry on with the game, are we?” Claudio asked. “Okay, Pedro - truth or dare?”

Pedro’s eyes shot to Balthazar in apprehension, and Balthazar immediately began to feel a happy nervousness again. Pedro took a second to gather himself, then sat up straighter and turned back to Claudio. “Truth.”

“Right! Let’s see, what should we ask Pedro…” Balthazar’s skin buzzed, his eyes glued to Pedro’s face as Claudio dithered. 

“Ask him if there are any special ladies in his life right now,” Meg suggested, eyebrows waggling. Pedro’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly.

“I could do that…” Claudio said, “But I dunno. That’s probably boring. Okay. Pedro - are you _actually_ happy to have John home now?” 

Pedro relaxed immediately, and Balthazar felt the wobbliness of a post-adrenaline hangover.

“Claudio! That’s rude!” Hero shoved him.

“What? I’m curious.”

“Of course, man!” Pedro said. “He _is_ my brother, after all. I’m relieved.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And I’m relieved you lot were nice to him, too.”

“It’s better than what he deserved,” Beatrice snapped. Pedro shot her a warning look.

“Be nice, Bea,” Hero said. “I’m relieved he’s back, too. Pedro, you must want to get back home to your family, actually…”

“Yeah, I probably should, I guess,” he said, though he gazed back at Balthazar as if he wanted something else entirely. “Soon-ish, anyway.”

“Soon-ish” turned into another hour of conversation. Balthazar was grateful when Pedro seemed to forget about Bea and Ben and turned his attentions back in Balthazar’s direction. The thrilling feeling from earlier reasserted itself, and he found he couldn’t stop smiling.

As they got up and brushed themselves off to head home, the flutter in Balthazar’s stomach intensified - he realized that since Verges and Dogberry had gotten picked up early, he’d be driving home alone with Pedro.

“Tell John hello again from us,” Ben said, as they trudged in groups to the parking lot. “Actually, Pedro, d’you want me to give Balthy a ride so you can head straight home?”

“Nah, man, no worries,” he said, putting a hand between Balthazar’s shoulders. A shiver radiated through Balthazar’s entire back.

“It’s no trouble, really.” Ben jingled his keys.

“Not a problem, mate.”

Balthazar took a tight breath, looking up at Pedro. The air was so electric between them that he had no idea what would happen if they were alone together, but he didn’t imagine it involved Pedro getting back to be with his family any time soon, and he knew that on some level, that was important to Pedro. “You should go home. I can go with Ben.” 

“Really?” Pedro sounded hurt. “Are you sure you don’t want _me_ …to give you a ride?” There was a hint of pleading in his voice.

Balthazar met Pedro’s eyes silently for a moment, trying to convey that this wasn’t a rejection, just a raincheck. With Pedro’s hand on his back, they were standing so close that it would barely take a stumble to be in each others’ arms. He forced himself to nod. “You should go be with your family right now. I’ll see you later, mate.”

“Right - to the BenMobile!”


	15. some things never change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Emily (aeternamente) for giving this a once-over!

Pedro’s parents took off work for the entire week after John returned, which meant many family meetings and difficult conversations. Pedro was relieved that John was home, but the exchanges had become exhausting, particularly because neither Pedro nor John was eager to get into what had led up to John’s disappearance, so their parents didn’t know what had happened. They had a general idea that Pedro had been involved, and they knew the boys didn’t get along, so they focused on getting everyone in the family to open up and communicate effectively, and conveniently brushed aside the catalyst for the whole event. Pedro knew he’d need to speak to John alone at some point, so that they could properly deal with the incident, but he was afraid - afraid that John still hated him and there was nothing he could do; afraid he would fuck things up somehow even if John no longer hated him; afraid that what had been broken might never be fixable.

During that week, he missed Balthazar so much it stunned him. Even though they saw each other at school each day, every evening that went by with another family meeting and no decompression time with Balthazar left him longing for his friend. Even worse was that Pedro had thought things were going so well up until the end of the picnic, but when Balthazar declined his ride home Pedro began to worry that he had come on too strong, or scared him off, or misinterpreted his feelings somehow. He knew the only way to clear it up would be to talk to Balthazar - _really_ talk to him, not just talk around it like they had been doing for weeks now - so being forced away from him felt extra painful. He resorted to sending late-night texts asking about Balthazar’s day and apologizing for being so busy with his family. Balthazar was never anything but gracious and understanding, of course, but Pedro continued to apologize because he didn’t know how else to say what he felt.

Pedro’s parents finally returned to work the following Monday, so Pedro steeled himself all day at school to have The Conversation with John. When he got home, however, John was already holed up in his room, the dull thud of a bass beat reverberating through his bedroom door, and Pedro immediately became discouraged. He shuffled to the kitchen to fix himself a snack, making a deal with himself that if John emerged before he had finished his sandwich, he would try to talk to him. If not, he’d allow himself to hide in his room and call Balthazar.

Sure enough, John came ambling into the kitchen when Pedro was no more than a few bites into his snack. The music floated hazily out of the hallway behind him. He met Pedro’s eyes briefly, but then silently made a beeline toward the fridge.

“Hey bro,” Pedro said, as brightly as he could muster. “I just washed some grapes - you want some?” He gestured to the bowl next to his sandwich on the table. John looked over warily, but joined him at the table anyway.

“What are you listening to in there?” he continued. “It sounds interesting.”

“Just a band that Cora told me about…” He popped a grape in his mouth and helped himself to a sip of Pedro’s juice. Pedro winced in frustration, but plowed along with the small talk as eagerly as he could.

“What band?”

“Twenty One Pilots.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard some of their stuff. Balthazar loves them. Cool, bro.”

John actually smiled at this. “And how is Balthazar these days?”

“Good, yeah. I mean, you saw him at the picnic. Same old Balthazar.”

“Really? I thought he was looking even peppier than usual. You both were, actually.”

“I guess,” Pedro began, hesitantly. “I mean, I was glad you were back, y’know? But I don’t know about him - he’s just always like that.”

“Don’t you? So I haven’t missed anything that’s happened there?” He looked hard at Pedro as he ate another grape.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’d really rather…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I actually wanted to talk to you about…um…the thing.”

John sat back and raised an eyebrow.

“I just wanted to say,” Pedro continued, “that, well…you were totally right. I was a jackass. I know Mum and Dad don’t really know the specifics of it all, and I guess I’d rather not have to tell them, because I don’t think they would see what really happened. I should have acted differently, and that’s not on you.”

This seemed to knock a tiny bit of smugness out of John’s smile. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m still angry about what you did, but I think I understand why you did it.”

“Really?” John was beginning to look skeptical.

Pedro forced himself to meet John’s eye. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

The smugness returned. “Well, that’s no surprise, is it?”

“No, you don’t understand,” Pedro sighed, exasperated. “It’s not because I want to be Mr. Popular or whatever. I want you not to hate me because you’re my brother, and you’re important to me. I want to help you. Not for me, but for you.”

John’s face fell, and he suddenly looked like that tiny, gangly adolescent that had shown up on Pedro’s doorstep three years earlier. “That…actually is surprising.” He plucked another grape off the stem and ate it absentmindedly.

Pedro took another bite of his sandwich. He hoped that what he’d just said had gotten through to John; it seemed like it might have, but he no longer trusted his instincts to show him the truth of the situation, especially when dealing with his brother.

“I guess Balthazar really was right,” John continued, still staring vaguely at the wall. “That’s very surprising.”

Pedro’s head snapped up. “Wait, what? Right about what?”

“He said you had changed. I was curious, but I didn’t think he was actually right.”

“Okay, but when did he tell you this? And why?”

John looked back at Pedro and smiled again. “ _And_ he kept his promise and didn’t tell you? Wow. You found a keeper, Pedro.”

Pedro’s heart was racing, but he couldn’t untangle his confusion. “John, what are you talking about?”

“You two _are_ together now, aren’t you?”

He choked. “No!”

“Come now, Pedro. You’re not going to deny it, are you?”

“We’re not, I swear! I don’t…” Pedro felt his face going red. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re really not?” John frowned.

“I swear!”

He furrowed his eyebrows, sizing Pedro up. “In that case, you should probably let him know you’re not interested. It’s not nice to lead him on like this.”

“Oh my god, I could throttle you right now,” Pedro growled, and dropped his head into his hands. “You don’t understand.”

“Why don’t you explain it to me?”

He groaned - John was using that overly reasonable tone of voice that usually accompanied the most ridiculous things he said. “Why don’t _you_ explain to _me_ what Balthazar told you first?”

John sighed. “Fine. Balthazar emailed me a couple times before I came back, advocating for you. He’s the one who told me about the picnic.”

“He emailed you?” Pedro racked his brain, trying to think of any hints Balthazar might have given about that. “But - I emailed you. Dad and Mum emailed you. Cora emailed you. We called, over and over again.”

“Yes, well, Balthazar was more…compelling than the rest of you.”

Pedro shook his head, confused. “What did he say?”

“I told you - he said you had changed.”

“And why did you think that meant that we were…together?” He could barely get the words out.

John chuckled. “It wasn’t that. All I got from the emails was that he had feelings for you, but I already knew that.” Pedro glared at him in disbelief. “It was the picnic that did it.”

“But how did you…?”

“I have eyes, haven’t I? It’s just like the way you used act around Benedick last year. Or Meg, the year before that. Or how you looked at Leo when you first made it onto the football team. Or Beatrice when she moved up here. Except this time, Balthazar is looking back. And you’ve always been close, so I just assumed from there.”

“You knew I was…?” Pedro sputtered, completely taken aback. He had had no idea that he was that transparent - or was John just more observant than most people? How many other people had seen it? “Look, you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

John reached out and grabbed Pedro’s juice glass, taking a quick swig. “Well, I suppose _some_ things never change.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pedro yanked the glass back.

“Perfect Pedro, never wants anyone to know his dirty little secrets.”

“It’s not dirty!”

“Exactly.” John’s voice was suddenly serious. “So why does it matter?”

Pedro didn’t have an answer for this. A heavy silence hung over the table. He was just about ready to give up on the conversation entirely, when John spoke again, more quietly.

“Look, I know this week I’ve been saying that I’d try to stop—”

“Winding me up? Manipulating people?”

He shrugged a concession. “It’s hard. I’m sorry.” Pedro looked at him, and grudgingly nodded. “But honestly, what are you so worried about? Team captain, all-round great guy, _ladies’ man_ …is that really the most important thing to you?”

Pedro stared at the table.

“I for one would have had much more respect for you if you’d just been honest about it this whole time,” John continued. “And you can’t tell me all that bullshit is more important than whatever is going on with you and Balthazar, can you? I am genuinely curious about that, by the way.”

“You seem to know already, so I don’t know what you’re curious about,” Pedro said testily.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” John sighed, “he’s easily your least obnoxious friend, so you’ve got my vote. Besides, he’s clearly in love with you.”

Pedro looked up at his brother. “You think so?”

John pushed himself up from the table. “Oh, Pedro.” He picked up the juice glass once more and laughed his way out of the kitchen and back to his bedroom.


	16. keeping secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to aeternamente for looking this over for me! <3

Balthazar hadn’t hung out with Pedro outside of school since the picnic, so when Pedro came over that day, Balth was excited to see him. He was a little nervous about whether or not Pedro had seen Ben’s most recent video, but at this point it seemed like it would be a relief to finally have things out in the open after dancing around it for so long. Balthazar didn’t want to make an issue of it, in case Pedro hadn’t watched it, but he was ready to deal with it if it came up.

Ostensibly, they’d agreed to work on their calc homework together, but although they both had their problem sets out on the bed in front of them, neither was doing a very good job focusing. At some point, Balthazar asked, “mind if I play a little while we work? It helps me think.”

“Sure, fine. Maybe it’ll help me, too. I swear the numbers are all just blurring together today.”

“Same.” He reached over to where his guitar was resting in its stand and pulled it into his lap. He picked out some random chords, which morphed into one of the interludes from Flight of the Conchords, which then morphed into one of the songs he’d written earlier in the year.

“Balthazar? Can I ask you something?” Pedro said suddenly.

He still had his eyes on the maths book lying in front of his knees when Balthazar glanced over. _Here we go_ , he thought. “Of course. What’s up?”

“Why did you decide to forgive me so quickly? After the vigil, I mean…why did you just stop being angry?”

This wasn’t the question he expected. He looked down at his hands, falling into a brief vamp between two chords. “I don’t know,” he answered, which felt like the truth.

“I mean, you agree that I was a jerk, right?”

He hesitated. “Yeah, you were.”

“So why? How?” Pedro was still nonchalantly looking at the textbook.

Balthazar shrugged. “I guess just because we’re friends. Being angry with you was exhausting. I couldn’t keep it up.” Balthazar could have said more, but he didn’t want to believe that he’d cut Pedro so much slack simply because he was in love, so he kept that to himself.

“Huh. Okay.”

They fell back into quiet, Balthazar mostly playing, contented, and Pedro mostly staring at the book, each occasionally stopping to write down an answer. After a while, Pedro spoke up again.

“John told me you were the one who invited him to the picnic.”

“Oh yeah?” Balthazar was surprised to hear this, but pleased to know that Pedro and John had been talking. From Pedro’s texts over the course of the week he knew they’d been having a lot of family time, but it was hard to know how positive or productive it was, since Pedro wasn’t very forthcoming with details.

“Was that your idea, or did Ursula put you up to it?”

This was another unexpected question. “Ursula? No, it was just me. I didn’t tell anyone about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Pedro spoke in a tone more curious than accusatory.

“Mmm. Well, I offered to keep it a secret, because I didn’t want to spook him, and he asked me not to tell you, so I figured it would be best for everyone if I kept it quiet.”

Pedro nodded, but his thoughts were clearly still churning. “You didn’t tell me about Bea’s song for Ben, either.”

Balthazar chuckled. “Yeah, but that’s because I might have gotten on her shit list if I had.”

“You’re good at keeping secrets.”

Balthazar didn’t know what to say to that. He was beginning to feel like maybe they were having two different conversations, so even though Pedro wasn’t looking at him, he merely cocked his head and kept noodling on the guitar.

Pedro sighed, agitated. Finally he looked up. “Do you mind if I see that for a sec?” He reached toward the guitar.

“Um, sure?” Balthazar was confused, but handed it over anyway. “Be careful, please.” Pedro took the instrument, leaned forward, set it gently on the floor in front of the bed, and sat back.

“I don’t want to keep secrets between us any more.” He slipped a hand around the nape of Balthazar’s neck and pulled him in, tenderly pressing their lips together.

Balthazar was completely unprepared. His whole body tensed up, flares of tingly warmth blooming from his neck, his mouth, his gut. His hands floated out in front of him, as if pressed against an invisible wall. The kiss was a tiny eternity, before Pedro drew back, hand still on Balthazar’s neck. He licked his lips and looked into Balthy’s eyes, murmuring, “Is this okay?”

Balthazar blinked, trying to speak, but too breathless to get anything out. Instead, he nodded vaguely, and his hands found Pedro’s shirt, pulling him back in.

At first, Balthazar found he couldn’t shut off his brain, which was comparing every tiny detail of this kiss to the many imagined iterations that had come before. _His lips are on my lips._ The reality of even this much was enough to overwhelm, but there was so much more. _His jumper is so warm and soft in my hands. His fingers are raking through my hair. Can I touch his hair? Oh - his tongue. OH. Okay, breathe. Can I get closer? **How** can I get closer? His lips are so soft. Can I touch his jaw? OH._ Soon, however, his train of thought was drowned out by the cacophony of sensation bombarding him, and he surrendered.

***

“So what did you mean, ‘I don’t want us to keep secrets any more?’ You’ve got secrets? What are these scandalous things you’ve been keeping from me?” They were lying on the bed, Balthazar’s head resting on Pedro’s shoulder, lazily running their fingers over each other. He could feel Pedro’s rumpled jumper leaving creases on his cheek.

“Seriously?” Pedro laughed. “This, man!” He gestured at the two of them.

Balthazar giggled. “So you thought this was a secret, then? In that case, you’re not very good at keeping secrets, it turns out.”

“What? You knew, like, for sure?”

“Generally people who just want to be friends don’t constantly stare at each other. Or take every opportunity to touch each other. Not that I’m complaining.” Balthazar flattened his palm against Pedro’s chest, petting him gently.

Pedro laughed and ruffled Balthazar’s hair. “Well if you knew, why didn’t you say something?”

Balthazar thought for a moment. He knew that he probably could have made a move any time within the last couple weeks, and certainly any time since they’d come out to each other. He shrugged. “I guess it seemed like maybe you weren’t ready…? I don’t know if that makes sense, but I just thought that you needed time to get here.”

In response, Pedro gently kissed his forehead.

“Besides,” Balthazar continued, the intimacy making him brave, “I’d already been waiting for a while, so another week or two wasn’t that hard.”

Pedro’s breath hitched. “Waiting? Really?”

“I mean, not like _waiting_ waiting, but…”

“So, the Ode…?”

“Yeah.”

He covered his face. “God damn it - I knew it. I really am an asshole. I _knew_ that was the wrong thing to say, but I didn’t know how else to react…ugh, that’s a terrible excuse. I’m so sorry.”

Balthazar nuzzled into Pedro’s neck. “It’s okay. All’s well that ends well, yeah?”

“I suppose so.” At this, Pedro caught him off guard with another series of kisses.

When they’d relaxed again, Pedro spoke softly, his voice reverberating through his chest directly into Balthazar’s ear. “I meant what I said, though - I don’t like having secrets between us. Can we agree that we’ll have no more secrets?”

“I’m okay with that,” Balthazar answered happily. Then something dawned on him. “But, is that just for us, or does that mean we’re going to tell everyone about…this? I’m totally fine with that, by the way, but the other day it seemed like maybe you’re not ready…”

Pedro sighed. “I do want to tell people…I think? I mean, maybe we could just tell a few people, at first? Like, John knows now. And I’m pretty sure Ursula knows.”

Balthazar laughed. “Oh yeah. She knows. And, um, did you see Ben’s video from last night?”

“What? No!”

“So they, um, they sort of know too. Bea and Ben, I mean. But only that I like you.” Even now, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything more than “like,” which felt so inconsequential, but there would be plenty of time later for explicating his feelings.

“Okay, time out,” Pedro said, wriggling out from under Balthazar’s head and sitting up. “I need to watch this video now.” He headed for Balthazar’s computer and pulled up the video. Balthazar sat up and watched as Pedro began slowly shaking his head at Bea and Ben.

“That was it,” Balthazar said, after the moment had passed. “They don’t mention it again later.”

“ _They_ want to get back at _me_? Ha!” He moved the progress dot back 30 or so seconds to rewatch the clip. “We should get back at them. Make them think they’re setting us up, when we’re secretly already together. That’ll show them.”

Balthazar started to get that uncomfortable, nettled feeling again, like he had at the picnic. “Um…are you sure that wouldn’t just cause more problems?”

“It’s just for a laugh! What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, necessarily…” Balthazar said slowly. 

“Right! So how can we do this? What if you told Ben—“

“Pedro, stop.” He shook his head. “You wanted honesty, right?” 

Pedro turned from the computer to face him. “Yes. Completely. What is it?”

“I just…” Balthazar frowned, trying to wrap his mind around the right words. “I feel like you’re maybe a little too invested in getting back at Bea and Ben. And like, I don’t even understand what you’re trying to get back at them for…?”

Pedro laughed. “Dude, they’re asking for it with this video!”

“But…just…” He sighed. He didn’t want to come off as jealous, but Pedro didn’t seem to want to listen, so he had no choice but to be direct. “Would you do this if it were someone else besides Bea and Ben? Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the…um, the weirdness that you were telling me about the other day?”

“No, of course not. I mean, maybe a little, I guess…” Pedro’s bluster began to fade. “You have to admit, it would be funny to trick them, though.”

Balthazar knit his eyebrows. “Pedro, can you please just tell me the truth, like you said you wanted?”

Pedro’s shoulders fell, but he nodded. “I dunno…” he began, “they just…know how to press my buttons, you know? I feel like I never know whether I’m afraid to lose them to each other or whether I never want to speak to them again.”

Now Balthazar finally felt like they were making progress. “Afraid to lose them?”

“Yeah. As friends, I mean. I hope that doesn’t, like, bother you?”

He shook his head. “They’re your friends. I get it. But y’know, you’re less likely to lose them if you don’t play tricks on them. If you just tell them what’s going on in your life.”

Pedro looked down at his hands. “I don’t know if I’m ready to,” he said timidly.

“That’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We don’t have to tell anyone yet if you’re not ready. Let’s just promise not to make a joke out of it, okay?”

Pedro looked up at Balthazar with hope in his eyes. “Are you sure that’s enough for you?”

“I mean, it’s just the two of us here right now.” Balthazar smiled at Pedro. “That can be enough for a while.” 

Pedro grinned back. “I think the two of us here right now is plenty,” he said, returning to the bed.


	17. hey nonny nonny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to aeternamente for her help with this chapter! <3

The first week that Pedro was with Balthazar was a turbulent one for him, vacillating wildly between peaks and valleys. When he was alone with Balthazar, he felt almost scarily amazing. In just a few days his already substantial feelings had grown larger and more intense than he had thought possible, to the point where he thought his chest might burst with happiness and affection. He quickly realized that every moment spent with Balthazar was a further fall into love, and he dove eagerly, recklessly.

Things were also going surprisingly well with John. He had told John, succinctly but unambiguously, that he and Balthazar had gotten together that first night that he came home floating on a cloud. He’d left the room before John could respond, but ever since then John had been a bit more generous with his smiles and stingy with his snipes. He picked up immediately on the fact that Pedro wasn’t yet sharing this as common knowledge, and seemed to respect it. It made being at home quite a bit less exhausting, which was a nice change.

School, on the other hand, had become nigh on torturous. Not only was Pedro falling even further behind in his classes, but when they were sitting in class or with the group at lunch he felt the absence of Balthazar’s touch like a physical ache, as strong or stronger than the pull he felt not to give himself away. When this happened, Balthazar would often catch his eye and give him a knowing smile, and it was all Pedro could do to restrain himself from pulling him in for a full-on public makeout session.

But still there was that small, stubborn part of him whose sole mission was to prevent him from revealing his sexuality or his new relationship with Balthazar to his friends. He wanted to ignore it, to shut it off completely, so when he found himself unable to do so he felt miserable and peevish. Any progress towards reconciliation, with Beatrice especially, stalled out because Pedro was so cranky that no one wanted to talk to him or even be around him. The dinner with his family and the Duke family had been nearly as awkward and hostile as the vigil had been, and Pedro was convinced it was entirely his fault.

He’d gone to Balthazar’s house the next day and told Balthazar about the dinner, and about how awful he felt trying to hide what made him so happy. By the end of that conversation, Pedro could barely remember why he’d wanted to conceal their relationship, or his sexuality, in the first place. Why shouldn’t he shout from the rooftops that Balthazar, the most beautiful person he knew, wanted to be with him, and to hell with the fact that most everyone assumed he was straight? Before they were able to come to a decision on what to do about it, however, Pedro had gotten a bit too distracted by Balthazar’s beauty, after which there hadn’t been much conversation at all for the rest of the evening.

When the day of the apology party rolled around, Pedro woke with a feeling of conviction in his gut. Balthazar had said this would be enough for now, but it wasn’t enough, not for Pedro. He was done hiding. In the afternoon, he called Balthazar, who was on a day trip with his family visiting relatives.

“Balth, I can’t do this any more.”

“What?! Do what?”

“I can’t lie about this any more. I need to tell them about us before I fucking explode.”

“Oh!” Balthazar sighed audibly. “Well…you know I’m okay with it, yeah?”

“Yeah, I just…I need your help. I don’t know if I can do it by myself.” Pedro ran a hand through his hair.

“Okay…I mean, did you want me to just tell people…?”

“No,” Pedro said decisively. He’d been fighting with himself on that very point all morning, and he knew that was too cowardly a route to choose. “I want us to do it together. That’ll be the best way, I think.”

“Sure, yeah.” Pedro could practically hear Balthazar smiling over the phone line.

“Can we do it tonight at the apology party? I can’t wait much longer. I don’t think our parents really understand what they’re trying to fix with that, but everyone will be there, so I figured…”

“Yeah! Great idea!” Balthazar agreed.

Only Balthazar and his family hadn’t gotten back when they were supposed to, and so Pedro was stuck at the party without his moral support, surrounded by adults who just wanted an empty apology, and his friends who just wanted to shun him for sulking.

Except for Ben, of course. Ben never did know when to leave well enough alone. He dragged Pedro to Hero’s bedroom under the guise of “taking all his feelings away and make them go ‘poof.’” Unfortunately, Ben didn’t realize why Pedro was actually upset, which made the effort into nothing more than a frustrating charade. Pedro had a brief moment of hesitation when Ben suggested that filming their conversation could help clear things up, and he considered whether coming out on video might be easier. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he wanted Balthazar by his side, and he wanted to do it in person as they’d planned together on the phone.

When Ben brought out cake as a peace offering, Pedro softened a bit. He really did feel bad about being so surly around everyone, and he could tell that Ben was making a genuine effort, so he tried to reciprocate by asking how things were going in Ben’s life.

“So you and Beatrice…” he began.

“Look,” Ben laughed, “there is nothing you can do to make me feel like an idiot, okay?” 

Pedro hung his head. Even his small attempt to be social had failed, all because of the repercussions of his poorly thought-out scheme, which he now realized had been rooted in jealousy. He hadn’t quite noticed how much Bea and Ben still occupied his thoughts until Balthazar pointed it out to him, but now that he had, Pedro found he couldn’t turn around without it biting him in the ass.

Ben continued, “I have been an idiot, but so have you.”

This rankled Pedro, in no small part because he knew Ben was right. Nonetheless, he felt the need to explain himself. “I’m the one who set you up. I was the one who made you look like a lovestruck idiot in front of Beatrice. It wasn’t supposed to work. It’s a joke.”

“And they say you and John aren’t alike.” Pedro knew he deserved this comparison, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. “A joke? Pedro, I have seen the videos…are you sure that, on some level, there wasn’t a little bit of revenge going on there?”

This was another potential opportunity to explain what was really bothering him. Though he still felt firmly decided that he would stick to the plan, now that he had decided to come out, all he could see in the conversation were roundabout ways to bring it up. However, confessing to Ben now that he had been jealous of both him and Beatrice would almost certainly cause more confusion than it would clear up, so he stuck with what he had been doing for the past several weeks - apologizing.

The more he apologized, the more frustrated Ben became, until finally Ben decided to change tactics. “Okay look, I was hoping it would not come to this, but you leave me with no other choice. Do you remember when I was talking about the camera taking all your feelings away and making them go ‘poof’? Well recently, I have made the startling discovery that people are even better. Seriously, they take all your sadness away and just make it go ‘poof’. So, after applying my scientific mind to this, I have come to the conclusion that you need to get a girlfriend.”

And here it was again - another perfect opportunity to tell Ben the one thing that he’d planned to announce. But still, Pedro couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“A girlfriend?” he echoed dubiously.

“Absolutely! That way you’d have someone besides me telling you to get out of this funk of yours, someone you might actually listen to. Oh, I am totally gonna set you up with somebody, buddy.” Pedro groaned. This was starting to get into Love Gods territory, and that was one approach he and Balthazar had agreed was really not okay. “Okay, just think of the possibilities…let’s throw some names around in here.”

He pulled at his hair. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Oh ho ho, you might think that now, my friend, but just you wait.”

Pedro was relieved to have a good reason to toss out Ben’s first suggestion of Olivia, but he didn’t want to have to sit here waiting for Ben to list every girl at Messina High before eventually figuring out that Pedro wasn’t interested in any girls at the moment.

He screwed up his courage. “No, but listen, I was thinking—“

“No no no, alright, okay,” Ben interrupted. “So maybe someone more like…Balthazar!”

Pedro’s eyes shot to Ben in surprise. Had he figured it out? Had Ursula told him? Pedro was so preoccupied in wondering how Ben could have gone from Olivia to Balthazar that it took him a long moment to realize that Ben was looking over Pedro’s shoulder. Pedro turned and sprang off the bed, relief coursing through him that Balthazar had finally arrived.

“Yeah, yeah sorry I’m late,” Balthazar said. “Um, Ursula just let me in, told me you’d disappeared off somewhere. Thought I’d come see if you were okay.”

Balthazar met his eye, and Pedro had a familiar moment of “I ought to be able to greet you with a hug and a kiss right now if I weren’t such a goddamn coward.” He barely registered Ben’s answer, but when Ben began dragging Balthazar to sit in front of the camera, his stomach clenched. What if Balthazar found out that Ben was trying to set him up and thought that Pedro was trying to play a trick on him? He could only hope that Balthazar trusted him not to do that.

He sat stiffly next to Balthazar, allowing their knees to rest together because he needed some sort of physical reassurance, and waited to see how things would unfold.

“So, what were you guys up to?” Balthazar asked.

Ben began to throw out silly excuses, obviously trying and failing to hide what they’d been talking about. Much as a small part of Pedro enjoyed watching Ben squirm, he remembered the promise of honesty between Balthazar and himself, and he saw Balthazar asking him for it with his gaze.

“Ben here was trying to set me up with a girlfriend,” he said, hoping that Balth wouldn’t assume the worst.

“Ah, yeah. Or a boyfriend.”

 _Finally_ , a useful opening in the conversation. “Or a boyfriend. Actually, do you have any suggestions?”

“Well, who have you covered so far?”

“No guys as of yet.”

Ben seemed to be protesting, but Pedro wasn’t listening.

“So what about…Tony?”

That cheeky little shit. After every reason he’d given Pedro that it was a bad idea, Balthazar was going to trick Ben now? Pedro began playing along, but despite Ben’s evolving facial expressions he found it wasn’t at all funny or satisfying in the way he had thought it would be. The more random guys Balthazar mentioned, the more Pedro just wanted him to suggest himself so that they wouldn’t have to lie any more. He was so tired of keeping up this pretense.

As if things couldn’t get any more awkward, John chose that moment to show up. Pedro hoped that John’s tangent about Ursula’s year nines would distract Ben from his single-minded setup efforts, but, predictably, it didn’t work.

“Well, John, ex-leader of Team Evil, welcome to Team Love Gods, part two. Our celestial mission being to set Pedro up with someone - _anyone_.” This was derailing quickly. The last thing Pedro wanted was to be outed by his brother in some Love Gods setup scheme.

He deflected as long as he could, but he needed to get out of this room - Ben and John’s combined presence was just too stressful. He needed to have a moment alone with Balthazar to reassure himself that everything was going to be okay.

“Okay! Balthazar…do you wanna go outside with me?”

“Yeah, yeah sure.”

They slipped into the hallway. As Balthazar shut the door behind them, Pedro turned to mutter, “Ugh, that was ridiculous. I’m sorry, I just…I got discouraged, and I couldn’t—“

“Pedro, can I talk to you?” Bea was just coming up the stairs, and Pedro, not watching where he was going, bumped into her.

“Oh, sorry!” He really wasn’t in the mood to have it out with Bea, but he didn’t feel like he could deny her a conversation, either. “Um, sure? What’s up?”

“The aunties were just asking me where you’d gone off to. Should I tell them you’re off stewing in your manpain?” She glanced over his shoulder at Balthazar, throwing him a “how do you put up with this one?” look.

“Did you actually want to talk, or were you just going to drag me back to the party? Because that’s where we were headed. Right, Balthazar?”

Balthazar surreptitiously slipped his hand into Pedro’s. “Yeah, just coming out now.” Pedro coughed through a laugh, even though Bea had probably missed his pun entirely.

“Okay, well, good,” she replied, apparently losing steam on an incipient rant. “By the way, is Benedick up here somewhere? He absconded with most of the cake and I half thought he might just head for the hills with his prize. I haven’t even had any yet.”

“Yeah, he’s still in Hero’s room talking to John,” Pedro replied. “You could go in there if you want…”

Bea pulled a face at John’s name. “Nah, I’ll wait. C’mon, let’s go downstairs.”

She turned to go, but Pedro reached for her shoulder with his free hand. “Wait, Bea…”

“What?”

He took a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. For everything.”

The hard edges of her face softened slightly. “Yeah, I know.” She turned to descend the stairs, and Balthazar squeezed Pedro’s hand as they followed her.

They had talked this through multiple times on the phone that afternoon, and with Balthazar’s hand now in his, all the anxiety that he felt before Balthazar arrived had turned into a fizziness in his stomach. Hiding his feelings for Balthazar made him feel ill - why shouldn’t he share them? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to act just as revoltingly sweet as Bea and Ben did? But no, he reminded himself - this wasn’t about Bea and Ben any more. This was about him and Balthazar.

At the foot of the stairs, he glanced at Balthazar and was met by shining eyes and the cutest dimple he’d ever seen, and he felt a surge of assurance. “You okay? You ready?” Balthazar asked softly. In answer, Pedro dropped Balthazar’s hand and snaked an arm around his waist. Balthazar responded in kind, and they shared a brief peck on the lips before striding together into the living room.

“Pedro has emerged!” Bea announced to the room, throwing her hands in the air.

Pedro held his breath as he observed everyone’s reaction. The room had gone nearly silent for a moment after Bea spoke. Most were smiling, but with a slight query in their eyes. A couple had paused in the middle of a bite of cake. Ursula was beaming. Hero’s mums both looked pleasantly surprised. Bea was the only one who didn’t notice, as she was still facing away. He had been afraid of this part, the awkward silence where everyone watching clearly knew, but nothing had been acknowledged. Now that he was in it, however, it wasn’t quite as scary as he’d feared.

They made their way to the couch, where Meg scooted over to make room for them to sit next to each other, an impish glint in her eye. Pedro perched his arm on the couch behind Balthazar’s shoulders, fingers resting lightly against his blazer, and Balthazar let his hand fall on Pedro’s knee. Pedro suddenly didn’t know where to look or what to say, but they had planned for that, so he looked to Ursula to give him his opening.

“So Balthazar,” she said on cue, loudly enough that everyone could hear her, “Where is your gig again tomorrow?”

“At the tea shop downtown,” he answered. “At ten.”

“You lot will all be there, right?” Pedro addressed the room. “I wouldn’t want to have to break anyone’s thumbs for not showing up.”

“Oh!” Bea exclaimed, turning. She’d been trying to have a chat with Hero, and had only just noticed that Hero wasn’t really paying attention to her. “Pedro! Are you…” Recognition slowly dawned on her face. “Are you Balthazar’s Brute Squad or something now?”

Pedro chuckled at the Princess Bride reference, his heart lightening with every beat. “Yeah, you might say I’m his official Brute Squad now.” He let the moment carry him, and he turned and kissed Balthazar’s rosy cheek. Several people laughed, Meg whooped, and everyone, including Bea, unleashed their hugest smiles. One of the year nines, the one with the ponytail, even clapped. Balthazar hid his bashful smile in Pedro’s shoulder, but Pedro couldn’t have hidden his smile if he tried.

***

“You sure you don’t mind if I head out a little early?” Balthazar asked. They were loitering near the front door of the house, the muffled sounds of the party echoing down the hallway. “You’re okay on your own? They might ask you questions…”

“No worries, man. I’m good. Better than I’ve been in a long time, in fact, thanks to you.” Pedro smiled softly and brushed the backs of his knuckles down Balthazar’s cheek. Balth let his head fall against Pedro’s hand, eyes half closed. “Besides, you need your rest, yeah? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for ruining your playing tomorrow.”

“I don’t think you could ever ruin my playing, but I appreciate your concern.” He turned his head and kissed Pedro’s fingers.

“Look, um,” Pedro said suddenly. He hadn’t prepared for this, but the moment had begun to overwhelm him and he didn’t want this to become another thing he was hiding for no reason. “Since we’re, uh, telling people things tonight…there’s, um, something I wanted to tell you, too.”

“Oh. Okay,” Balthazar answered, raising his eyes. His hands began messing with the sleeves of his blazer.

Pedro held his breath and searched Balthazar’s face, though he didn’t know what answer he was looking for. When he was silent for a long moment, Balthazar raised an eyebrow playfully. Pedro chuckled and relaxed; he wondered if Balthazar realized that he always knew exactly how to put Pedro at ease. Wrapping his arms around Balthazar’s waist, he leaned in and whispered “I love you,” dropping a soft kiss on the ear along with it.

Balthazar brought his arms up around Pedro’s neck and pressed his smile into Pedro’s cheek. “I love you, too.” Pedro shut his eyes and squeezed tightly, savoring the privilege of holding this person, his favorite person, close to him.

He could have stood there hugging Balthazar indefinitely, if not for Ben’s exclamation echoing down the hall - “Team Love Gods strikes again! Huzzah!”

They both began to shake with laughter. Pedro hid his face in Balthazar’s neck.

“‘Huzzah?’ Seriously?” Bea’s voice carried down the hall as well. “What century are we even in here?”

“‘Huzzah’ is a perfectly respectable way to express excitement, thank you very much.”

“Sure, if you’re at a Renaissance Fair.”

Pedro lifted his head and shook it at Balthazar, still laughing.

Ben continued, “Well, what would you suggest instead then?”

“I think,” Hero said loudly, clearly not talking to Bea or Ben, “‘Hey, nonny, nonny’ might be more appropriate. Wouldn’t you agree, Ursula?”

“Definitely.”

Balthazar blushed and rolled his eyes as Bea laughed and Ben cried, “Of course! Much better. ‘Huzzah’ has been stricken from the record. ‘Hey, nonny, nonny’ it is.”

“Hey, nonny, nonny,” Pedro murmured, as if trying it on. Balthazar giggled. “Y’know, I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with this fic if you made it all the way! I've really enjoyed sharing it with you all :D


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